3 out of 4 stars
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Strong Heart by Charlie Sheldon is a mystical journey. Located in the beautiful wilderness of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, the novel masterfully combines story telling, nature, and native mysticism to create a story of our ancestors and how they affect our present and future.
While getting ready for a long hike into Olympic National Park, Tom Olsen is handed a new challenge: his 13-year-old granddaughter, Sarah. After her mother’s death and her father’s inability to care for her while working overseas, Sarah is sent to her grandmother’s and then handed off to Tom, who has a very different lifestyle than she is used to. Sarah is a rebellious girl who rejects Tom’s values and way of life. William, Tom’s friend, convinces Tom to go ahead with the hike and bring Sarah along.
The next day, Tom, Sarah, William, and William’s daughter Myra, begin their trek into the Olympics. Along the way, Sarah learns the significance of the trip and comes to understand the importance of her ancestors. Sarah brings along her sketch pad and draws anything that catches her eye, which includes a short-faced bear, an enormous bear that is extinct. Angry that no one believes her sighting of the short-faced bear, Sarah disappears. When she doesn’t come back, Tom, William, and Myra go on an epic search. After eight days of searching, Tom and William find Sarah, injured and hungry. She tells the group a fascinating story that will begin to affect the stories of others.
Strong Heart is a wonderful homage to the Native American stories of the Pacific North West. As a native to Washington State, I understand the importance of preserving the lands claimed by the Native Americans, which made the story much more powerful. Sheldon is a wonderful story teller, and you can tell how much research and respect went into the writing.
The book is told from multiple points of view, but the one that stood out to me the most was Sarah’s. I believe that was the most successful part of the story. Each point of view shows character development as we move through the story, but Sarah’s point of view is the most interesting. Sheldon crafts Sarah into a character that is a part of Native American history. The names, the imagery, the structuring of the sentences, the word choices, it is all reminiscent of folk lore. It just proves how skilled Sheldon is as a writer in respect to classic Native American legends.
There were a lot of grammatical errors within the book. The first appeared on page nine, where there is a repeated ‘it’. There are many cases of missing commas. For example, on page 20 there is a missing comma between, “Coming up from Whiskey Bend,” and, “we were on a trail...” This also appears on page 23, where there should be a comma between, “After passing the Lillian River crossing,” and, “they climbed 400 feet...” In addition, the case of the missing comma appears on page 34. The corrected sentence should look like: “...now this company, Buckhorn, is going to...” The commas surrounding the name of the company gives it more emphasis within the sentence. There are missing quotation marks at the beginning of the fourth paragraph on page 45. Surprisingly, during Sarah’s story, there are no mentionable errors.
I noticed many sentences that sounded awkward. One example was on page 11. The sentence, “William caught Myra’s eye, nodded,” reads as incomplete and sounds awkward when read out loud. This occurs many times throughout the book. This sentence structure may be the author’s choice, but it was distracting.
A lot of the terminology is difficult to understand unless you have some knowledge or the patience to look them up. At times, I completely disregarded the words that I did not understand. The Native American terminology has importance within the story, but there was not a definition for them and they were left to infer. Again, this may be the author’s choice, but I would have liked a glossary of the Native American terms used, possibly at the end of the book.
I believe that everyone should read Strong Heart. It has an interesting message that will mean a lot to most of the readers. The flow of the book is walking pace. It can be slow in some parts and fast in others. If you are looking for a book that is action packed, then this is not the book for you. I hesitate to call Strong Heart historical fiction since there are only a few scenes of history, but if you do enjoy reading about Native American history, then you will enjoy this book.
Overall, I really enjoyed the message of Strong Heart. I give it a 3 out of 4. Sheldon is a master at recreating the Native American way of story telling. It is very apparent that he has a deep respect for the Native American cultures. The consistency of grammatical errors, strange sentence structures, and confusing terminology lead me to give the book a 3 out of 4 instead of a 4 out of 4. However, the story was riveting from beginning to end, and its faults should not hinder your decision to read it. Sarah’s story does not feel finished, which leads me to wonder if there is a sequel in the future.
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Strong Heart
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