Mother's Blessing - Softcover

Spinka, Penina Keen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0449704319 ISBN 13: 9780449704318

Publisher: Fawcett, 1993

Synopsis

Pretty One and her baby, Four Cries, are cast out of the village when a wise man's prophecy--that Pretty One's son will grow up to be a great leader--is proven false because the infant is a girl. Four Cries, in her search for her spirit guide makes many allies, ultimately uniting three enemy villages and helping her own people avoid starvation--and fulfilling the prophecy!

About this title

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-8-- In prehistoric southern California, the birth of a chief's daughter (instead of the expected son) precipitates the exile of the child and her mother, and enmity between two villages. The two find shelter in a remote valley with a wise woman feared by the villagers, and the girl grows up self-confident and skilled with the bow. Eventually, in quest of her spirit guide, she travels to the area we call New Mexico, finds the guide she has foreseen, and learns that she is the powerful leader awaited by her people. This plot is the novel's strong point. Its weaknesses are technical. There is a tendency for characters to describe or explain their native customs to each other, as well as some anachronistic attitudes or assumptions. Most damaging, however, is the flatness of the writing. The characters seldom come alive; the heroine is as schematic as the generic names (``Child,'' ``New Woman'') she bears. She never has enough emotion or personality to make her supposed falling in love at the end credible. The language isn't clumsy, just thin: opportunities for vivid description are missed, and when the heroine speculates on her spirit guide she thinks, banally, ``He must be nice.'' Mother's Blessing is apprentice work, but shows potential, and readers interested in the anthropological or early Native American material may overlook the lack of style and technical flaws. --Patricia Dooley, University of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

In the tenth century, Old Man prophesies the birth of a great ``wot'' (leader) to Swordfish and Pretty One. But the baby is a girl: Old Man is exiled for his falsehoods, and Swordfish abandons Pretty One and her daughter. But ``Child'' is extraordinarily bright and capable; as an adolescent, she travels east from what is now California on a spirit quest, discovering the prophecy and its truth. Returning home with corn that grows in spite of drought, she takes her place as ``pacwot''--unifier and leader of three feuding villages, ensuring the survival of all. Presented as a prequel to Spinka's first book (White Hare's Horses, 1991, also about the Chumash lands and people), this further establishes the author's skill as a fluent storyteller who is well versed in North American legend. Readers may be mildly distanced from the heroine, whose struggles are minor given her idealized intellect and nobility; however, Spinka's search for the human incarnations of mythical figures and her creative realizations of archetypal events are entirely captivating. (Fiction. 10-14) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fawcett
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0449704319
• ISBN 13: 9780449704318
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 176