News of the World (2016)

I enjoyed News of the World up until the ending. I'll start with what I liked about the book. I loved the paced writing style that focused on details and sensual descriptions. As a Texas native I really enjoyed reading about what places I've been my whole life were like in the 1800s. I didn't love the story itself. While I did feel a connection to the Captain by the end I didn't feel Johanna or any other characters were very well developed. The ending seemed rushed and abrupt. I would have liked another 50+ pages to keep the same pace as the rest of the book. Overall a good read. ( )

Fascinating tale of post-civil war times in Texas. Child who had been taken by Indians after the murder of her family is recaptured, and old man undertakes the journey to return her to her relatives, and they form a bond. Based on historical fact that captured children had difficulty reintegrating into their birth culture. ( )

In Texas, a 6 year old girl gets abducted by Indians--her family is all killed. After 2 years she gets returned & a 70nyear old man (Captain Kidd) travel with her to return her to her remaining relatives. the Captain & girls relationship--she takes on the Indian Culture & no English, different standards...very well written
good book ( )

Entrancing.

> Captain Kidd traveled from town to town in North Texas with his newspapers and read aloud the news of the day to assemblies like this in halls or churches for a dime a head. He traveled alone and had no one to collect the dimes for him but not many people cheated and if they did somebody caught them at it and grabbed them by the lapels and wrenched them up in a knot and said, You really ought to pay your goddamn dime, you know, like everybody else. ( )

Jefferson Kyle Kidd the aging man who has lost his purpose, finds it again when he is tasked with return a 10 year old girl who was kidnapped to the Kiowa Tribe at age 6. He is such an interesting man with a history of fighting in the Civil War, of running "news" to soldiers as the only means of communicating. He has a love for information and for print, and a love of history and place. The strong young girl would ultimately never fit in with her abusive German Immigrant Aunt and Uncle. This is a beautiful book, paced slowly and deliberately. The characters are lovely.

I have never heard of a "newsreader" but it is fun to compare how the news was received and longed for, with the constant bombardment of news we have today. The love of print comes through so strongly in the pleasure Kidd took in his print shop and the almost reverence he give the newspapers he can get his hands on. "He loved print, felt something right about sending out information into the world. Independent of its content." Chapt 3

The captain is deeply spiritual and protective. "More than ever knowing in his fragile bones that it was the duty of men who aspired to the condition of humanity to protect children and kill for them if necessary. It comes to a person mosts clearly when he has daughters. He had thought he was done raising daughers. As for protecting this feral child he was all for it in principle but wishes he could find somebody else to do it." Chapt four

As for Johanna she will always fall between two cultures, she has been through 2 creations Doris says comparing it to the Irish famine. Chapt. 6

For both the Captain and Johanna, their relationship is life saving. The captain is "drawn back into the stream of being because there was once again a life in his hands. Things mattered. The strange depression and spiritual chill he had felt back in Wichita Falls was gone. "Chap. 8 . I think as we age we feel less and less useful. With integrity and if we push ourselves we may see unlikely opportunities to say engaged. It may be with jobs no one else wants to take on.

For Johanna, the captain gives her stability, love but also a life that suits her need to be moving and not standing still. When she marries it was into "a life she could love". Chapt. 22. Without her captain, this would not have been possible. ( )