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A review by lattelibrarian
Donner Dinner Party: A Pioneer Tale by Nathan Hale
5.0
Nobody should be surprised that I read this. Given how many graphic novels I've been reading and how many books I've read about the Donner party, this is just a natural cohesion of the two.
To be honest, when I first saw this, I was in class and only had a few minutes to get acquainted with it. Naturally, I wanted to get to the part where they ate people. (I mean, it was a Children's Lit Collections course for library science so...). What I found were a couple jokes and I was aghast--such a horrific moment in our nation's past! How could he?? But once I finally sat down and read the whole thing, I realized that the balance between the horrors and the jokes was actually quite nice and fitting given that this would likely be someone's first introduction to the Donner party's plight.
This version of the Donner party's plight was told through the eyes of James Reed, who was highly in favor of the Hastings Cutoff, who killed a man, and who joined a war while he thought his family was safely on the other side of the mountains instead of starving to death in the middle of them. He was certainly a character in his own right, and a good gateway into this tale. He was misguided, and therefore sympathetic, but angry, and therefore wary. Considering that he was one of the few who made it out of the Sierra Nevadas without eating anybody, he was the perfect person to position as the main character--and to poke a little fun at.
Aesthetic-wise, I really liked it. The outer tale (which I didn't fully understand because I didn't read the first few of this series) wrapped nicely around the inner tale, and the blue ink gave the story a cold, freezing feel to it.
Overall, this was a well-done intro to the tragedy of the Donner party. It's perfect for the age group to whom it's targeted, and the balance between the horrors and the jokes is well done.
Review cross-listed here!
To be honest, when I first saw this, I was in class and only had a few minutes to get acquainted with it. Naturally, I wanted to get to the part where they ate people. (I mean, it was a Children's Lit Collections course for library science so...). What I found were a couple jokes and I was aghast--such a horrific moment in our nation's past! How could he?? But once I finally sat down and read the whole thing, I realized that the balance between the horrors and the jokes was actually quite nice and fitting given that this would likely be someone's first introduction to the Donner party's plight.
This version of the Donner party's plight was told through the eyes of James Reed, who was highly in favor of the Hastings Cutoff, who killed a man, and who joined a war while he thought his family was safely on the other side of the mountains instead of starving to death in the middle of them. He was certainly a character in his own right, and a good gateway into this tale. He was misguided, and therefore sympathetic, but angry, and therefore wary. Considering that he was one of the few who made it out of the Sierra Nevadas without eating anybody, he was the perfect person to position as the main character--and to poke a little fun at.
Aesthetic-wise, I really liked it. The outer tale (which I didn't fully understand because I didn't read the first few of this series) wrapped nicely around the inner tale, and the blue ink gave the story a cold, freezing feel to it.
Overall, this was a well-done intro to the tragedy of the Donner party. It's perfect for the age group to whom it's targeted, and the balance between the horrors and the jokes is well done.
Review cross-listed here!