Salt: A Story of Friendship in a Time of War

by Helen Frost

Overview

Anikwa and James, twelve years old in 1812, spend their days fishing, trapping, and exploring together in the forests of the Indiana Territory. To Anikwa and his family, members of the Miami tribe, this land has been home for centuries. As traders, James's family has ties to the Miami community as well as to the American soldiers in the fort.

Now tensions are rising—the British and American armies prepare to meet at Fort Wayne for a crucial battle, and Native Americans from surrounding tribes gather in Kekionga to protect their homeland. After trading stops and precious commodities, like salt, are withheld, the fort comes under siege, and war ravages the land. James and Anikwa, like everyone around them, must decide where their deepest loyalties lie. Can their families—and their friendship—survive?

In Salt, Printz Honor author Helen Frost offers a compelling look at a difficult time in history.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2013

A Frances Foster Book

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250062895
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	12/01/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	115,073
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Helen Frost is the author of several books for young people, including Diamond Willow, Crossing Stones, The Braid, and Keesha's House, a Printz Honor Book. She currently lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with her family.

Read an Excerpt

JAMES
 
Dang mosquito bit me right where I can’t reach it.
I rub my back against a hickory tree—up and down,

side to side. There—almost got it. Might look silly,
but nobody’s watching. Except a squirrel—I hear it
 
up there in the branches, and I get out my slingshot.
Ma will be happy when I bring home something

 
for the soup pot. Where is that old squirrel, anyhow?
Sounds like a whole family of ’em, laughing at me,

and I can’t see even one. What? Not again! It’s
Anikwa, laughing as he jumps down from the tree

 
and lands beside me. How long has he been watching?
I swear he can sound like anything! Squirrel, bumblebee,

 
bluebird, or bullfrog. Once, I heard my baby sister crying,
but when I turned to look—it wasn’t Molly, it was him!

 
ANIKWA

James looks
up in the tree like he thinks
there’s a real squirrel hiding somewhere
in its branches. I suck in my cheeks
to make myself stop laughing—
he shakes his head,
puts away
his stone and slingshot,
gives me a smile that means I got him
this time, but next time he’ll be watching if I
try that trick again. Come on, he motions as he heads
to the berry bushes. I’ve seen him out here picking berries
every afternoon since they started to get ripe.
Makiinkweeminiiki, I say, pretending to
put berries in my mouth and
pointing down the trail
toward the bushes.
He nods his head.
Yes, he says,
blackberries. As we walk
to the berry patch, he tries my word—
makiinkweeminiiki, and I try his—blackberries.
I roll both words around like berries
in my mouth.

 
Copyright © 2013 by Helen Frost

Editorial Reviews

[Readers] will come away with heightened sympathy for non-combatants caught up in the course of violent change.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Printz Honor Book author Frost (Keesha's House, 2003) has written, with artful economy, another affecting novel in verse. Interspersed among selections narrated in the alternating voices of the two boys are poems about the salt that is necessary to the survival of both peoples.” —Booklist, starred review

“Sensitive and smart: a poetic vista for historical insight as well as cultural awareness.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Salt is an important novel for students to read and consider as they are learning about the War of 1812 in their social studies classes. The perspective of the boys helps bring personal meaning to a period of history that can be hard for students to grasp.” —VOYA

“The verse is succinct, yet beautiful, and the story is rich in historical and natural details. Fans of frontier and survival stories will find much to love within these pages.” —School Library Journal

From the Publisher

Using a narrative poetry format, Frost (Hidden) artfully crafts a fiction-based-on-fact story of events at Fort Wayne in the Indiana Territory in 1812. Pages alternate between the insightful voices of two 12-year-old friends: Anikwa, a member of the Miami nation, and James Gray, whose family runs the fort’s trading post. The poems offer each boy’s perspective on events, such as playing together in the woods or, later, the siege of the fort and subsequent burning of Miami villages. The layouts of the boys’ narration visually highlight the contrast between their cultures: Anikwa’s centered verses expand and contract in the organic shape of traditional Miami ribboncraft, while James’s left-justified, double-line stanzas represent the U.S. flag’s stripes, Frost explains. Lyrical poems about salt, a traded commodity necessary to both cultures, are interspersed: “Tears come from earth and sky,/ from words moving through us./ We taste them as they fall,/ leaving salt streaks on our faces.” Author notes and a glossary of Miami words conclude a very personal account of history that offers much for discussion. Ages 10–14. Agent: Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 5–7—Though the year 1812 rings ominously in the ears of any American history student, for Anikwa and James it is simply their 12th year, one that they expect will unfold like those that came before it. Anikwa, a member of the Miami tribe, and James, the son of traders living just outside Fort Wayne, have an easy friendship filled with trapping, fishing, and exploring the surrounding woods and river. Yet as outside events begin to converge, the first signs of betrayal and confusion enter their world as all is turned upside down. Frost, as readers have come to expect, fully embraces the stylistic possibilities of the verse form; James's poems run in long parallel lines visually representing the stripes of the American flag, while Anikwa's mirror Miami ribbon work. The two voices-and therefore forms-alternate easily throughout the story. The titular salt is sprinkled throughout the narrative, both as the subject of short poems that "give readers pause" between events (according to Frost's notes) and as a symbol of the fragile friendship between frontiersmen and Native Americans. James's father uncharacteristically withholds salt from Anikwa's people as tensions rise; yet pages later he watches as James takes great risk to get salt to Anikwa outside the stockade. The verse is succinct, yet beautiful, and the story is rich in historical and natural details. Fans of frontier and survival stories will find much to love within these pages.—Jill Heritage Maza, Montclair Kimberley Academy, Montclair, NJ

School Library Journal

Frost explores the wide-ranging impact of wartime aggression through the intimate lens of two 12-year-old boys caught in the crossfire of the War of 1812. Anikwa, a member of the Miami tribe hailing from Kekionga, often spends his days hunting and playing in the forest with James Gray, whose home is in the stockade near Fort Wayne. For centuries, Anikwa's ancestors have lived in this area, and James' family has enjoyed amicable relations with the Miami and other Native Americans with whom they exchange goods. While these differing communities have learned from and helped support each other through adverse conditions, British and American claims to the Indiana Territory near Fort Wayne force them to re-examine their relationship. As other tribes and thousands of American soldiers gather to fight to establish the border between Canada and the United States, Anikwa's grandmother laments, "We can't stop things from changing. I hope / the children will remember how our life has been," foreshadowing how the boys' friendship, which has always been able to bridge cultural and language gaps, will face unprecedented challenges. Frost deftly tells the tale through each boy's voice, employing distinct verse patterns to distinguish them yet imbuing both characters with the same degree of openness and introspection needed to tackle the hard issues of ethnocentrism and unbridled violence. Sensitive and smart: a poetic vista for historical insight as well as cultural awareness. (Verse novel. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews