liralen's review against another edition
3.0
I'd had this on my to-read list for more than three years—I no longer remember why—and this month I put in an ILL request for it at the local library, since I'm trying to plough through some of those to-reads. Well. Last week the library sent me an email saying that Girl in Buckskin was not, after all, available at any library in the area. Fast-forward to yesterday, when I headed a couple hours west to a huge book sale...and guess what book I found in the YA section?
Kismet, I tell you.
Anyway. Girl in Buckskin was first published in 1956, and it manages that trick of both conforming to the norms of the time and being—dare I say it?—rather feminist. It's 1703 in the Colonies, and Becky has long been an orphan since her parents were killed in an Indian (to use the language of the book) raid. Once the daughter of an upstanding family, with a promising future, she's now an indentured servant with her life planned out by others: marry the first man to offer, which in this case means a man who is wealthy but has driven his previous wives to early deaths. Becky's brother, Eseck, who spent several years among an Indian tribe after they kidnapped/adopted him, urges her to flee with him. He has struggled to reintegrate into white society and longs for a different way of life. So into the forests they go, and all is well until Becky finds herself on her own...
Now, some things stretch the bounds of imagination here. Becky has the skills and resourcefulness of somebody who has had to fend largely for herself, which I love. She's afraid of the woods and afraid of the unknown, but she realises early on that she's bloody well going to have to get on with it, because leaving has made them not just outcasts but fugitives (unclear whether this is because their/her indentured servitude came at a price or whether it's just a case of colonial towns demanding total conformity to the norm), and she can't go back. She learns. She learns wicked fast—Eseck teaches her, in less than a year, to hunt and track and hide; they never have any problems with the bows and arrows they make; etc., etc. Eseck's backstory is helpful (makes their survival make just a bit more sense!), and I love how Becky basically makes her own agency, but it would have been nice to see a little more struggle in ways that didn't relate to violence.
Unlike [b:Mercy Carter|470175|The Ransom of Mercy Carter|Caroline B. Cooney|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320458844s/470175.jpg|1417317] (that book being set in the same time period and place), Becky does not integrate into Native life: she is still a white woman who dreams of a log cabin and, perhaps, eventual return to a life among other white people. She remains suspicious of 'Indians' at large, even as she comes to care for some of those she gets to know and even as Eseck and another white man try to convince her otherwise. And it's that other white man, whom Becky singlehandedly rescues from certain death more than once, who provides her the means to leave behind her 'wild' life. It's a little odd—somehow manages to romanticise both Native life and colonial life? The ending is also wicked odd;. Sort of ties up loose ends? While also managing to give the reader a little whiplash...
Kismet, I tell you.
Anyway. Girl in Buckskin was first published in 1956, and it manages that trick of both conforming to the norms of the time and being—dare I say it?—rather feminist. It's 1703 in the Colonies, and Becky has long been an orphan since her parents were killed in an Indian (to use the language of the book) raid. Once the daughter of an upstanding family, with a promising future, she's now an indentured servant with her life planned out by others: marry the first man to offer, which in this case means a man who is wealthy but has driven his previous wives to early deaths. Becky's brother, Eseck, who spent several years among an Indian tribe after they kidnapped/adopted him, urges her to flee with him. He has struggled to reintegrate into white society and longs for a different way of life. So into the forests they go, and all is well until Becky finds herself on her own...
Now, some things stretch the bounds of imagination here. Becky has the skills and resourcefulness of somebody who has had to fend largely for herself, which I love. She's afraid of the woods and afraid of the unknown, but she realises early on that she's bloody well going to have to get on with it, because leaving has made them not just outcasts but fugitives (unclear whether this is because their/her indentured servitude came at a price or whether it's just a case of colonial towns demanding total conformity to the norm), and she can't go back. She learns. She learns wicked fast—Eseck teaches her, in less than a year, to hunt and track and hide; they never have any problems with the bows and arrows they make; etc., etc. Eseck's backstory is helpful (makes their survival make just a bit more sense!), and I love how Becky basically makes her own agency, but it would have been nice to see a little more struggle in ways that didn't relate to violence.
Unlike [b:Mercy Carter|470175|The Ransom of Mercy Carter|Caroline B. Cooney|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320458844s/470175.jpg|1417317] (that book being set in the same time period and place), Becky does not integrate into Native life: she is still a white woman who dreams of a log cabin and, perhaps, eventual return to a life among other white people. She remains suspicious of 'Indians' at large, even as she comes to care for some of those she gets to know and even as Eseck and another white man try to convince her otherwise. And it's that other white man, whom Becky singlehandedly rescues from certain death more than once, who provides her the means to leave behind her 'wild' life. It's a little odd—somehow manages to romanticise both Native life and colonial life? The ending is also wicked odd;
Spoiler
Eseck, who has long since abandoned Becky to return to his former tribe, returns just long enough to save Becky from attack and be killed in the processdonyala's review against another edition
4.0
This book is weirdly amazing. A white girl leaves her home as a servant to escape a forced marriage - and goes to live with the Indians.
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