I read this 208-page novel in a day. Could not put it down. A 72 year old Civil War veteran, father of two daughters, widower, Capt Jefferson Kyle Kidd, agrees to return a 10 year old girl, Johnanna Leonberger, from Wichita Falls to her relatives in San Antonio. Johanna had been taken prisoner by the Kiowa Indians at the age of 6. The Indians killed her parents in the process. Johnanna spoke no English and only a word or two of German. The long and perilous journey provides plenty of suspense and adventure. The cast of characters is small but each is memorable in its own way. What gives the book its power -- and its magic -- is the relationship between the Captain, who is crusty but honest and brave, the girl, who is experiencing her third capture. The presentation and animation of this pairing requires writing and story-telling of the greatest skill. Fortunately, Jiles is a gift artist.The book is never sentimental or condescending. I will read more of Jiles' work without any doubt. ( )

I'm looking forward to the movie based on this book, starring Tom Hanks as Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, that will be coming out at the end of next year.

This story is based on true events. The author has a deep interest in learning the psychological effects on children who were captured by Indians. History has shown that most children wanted to return to their Indian families, even after being rescued within a year. Some of the characters are based on real people, such as the traveling news reader. His character was based on one named Caesar Adolphus Kydd, the original reader of the news in North Texas in the 1870's. Also, characters Britt Johnson, Paint Crawford, and Dennis Cureton, who were killed in a Comanche raid in 1871, is real. The Horrell brothers who terrorized central Texas around Lampasas and New Mexico were also real. The Texas landscape and route from Wichita to San Antonio were real. So, this is actually a historical novel, and not just a novel.

Unforunately, the story is incredibly slow until about halfway through the book, then I began to enjoy it a bit more. And I found it odd that the author didn't use any puntuation marks for dialogues, which was at times distracting, confusing, and sometimes not even constructed properly.

The story opens in Wichita Falls, Texas, in the year 1870. Captain Kidd was a printer before the Civil War took his press and everything else, and he then made a living by travelling around North Texas reading the local and worldly news from other northern newspapers to people who gathered in groups to listen to these readings for ten cents a head. He was bored with this and so took up an offer to deliver a 10-year old white girl, Johanna, who was reluctantly returned by an Indian tribe, to Castroville near San Antonio to her aunt and uncle, as her parents and siblings had been killed four years earlier. They slowly developed a bond of trust and friendship through their trials during their travels, much like a grandfather would care for his grandchild, and vice-versa. Once delivered into the hands of her aunt and uncle, things don't seem quite right and he considers adoption, but finds there are currently no laws for legal adoption. When he returned the following day and saw that she had already been beaten, he had to make an instant decision to legally leave her, or, in his old age of 71 years, to kidnap her and care for her for the remaining of his days as a traveling news reader. ( )

good stuff. Bit emotional at the end. ( )

An excellent Western by the author of the Color of Lightning; there is even a cameo appearance by Britt Johnson. The author continues to explore the phenomenon of the settler’s child captured by Indians and later returned. Except for a single distracting letter that, as TV executives say, “lays a lot of cable”, the structure of the novel is tight, moving and satisfying. Westerns are pretty spare, and you can think of the text as comprising narration and dialogue separated by descriptive paragraphs, e.g. a description of the landscape, and brief more intellectual asides perhaps in the form of a character’s thoughts. Some of these latter elements here are our view of the characters, and in this case the pair of the captured girl and the old Texan are very pleasing with some philosophical and moral heft that contribute to the strength of the book. According to an acknowledgment, the protagonist is based on a real character who read the news in North Texas.
The author has chosen to write her dialogue without any punctuation. This works about 80% of the time.
The author seems widely informed about the historical details of Texas at this time, but there is mention of a safety on what is probably a .38 caliber variant of an 1870 Smith & Wesson model 3. Revolvers don’t have a safety, and except for some 19th century guns that could be half-cocked or where the hammer could rest on the cylinder between chambers, I don’t think they ever have had one. ( )

Captain Kidd is a news reader who travels around Texas reading the news to a paying audience shortly after the end of the Civil War. After one such reading he is approached by some fellow itinerants who have rescued a 10 year old settler girl who had been living with the Kiowa who had killed her family and kidnapped her. Captain Kidd is engaged to deliver the young girl, Johanna, back to her relatives near San Antonio. Johanna is at first hostile, since she has been with the Kiowa for 4 years, and views them as her family. This is the story of the journey of Johanna and Captain Kidd, who has tragedies in his past as well, and of the dangers they have to contend with on the journey.

The historical setting is interesting and well-done. The years succeeding the end of the Civil War, were unsettled, particularly in states like Texas that were still largely undeveloped. Although the war is over, there is still a lot of conflict and wildly divergent political views on the path forward (maybe somewhat like our own times). I was also interested in the depiction of Captain Kidd's profession as a news reader, particularly as he analyzes, contemplates, and chooses what news would best suit the particular audience he is reading to (again maybe like some of our current day news sources). It was interesting to read, as Captain Kidd narrates to his audience, some of the news of the day--the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, the first professional baseball team, the Franco-Prussian war.

What I didn't like about the book was the ending. If felt like the author had the need to tie everything up in a happily-ever-after neat ending, like a made for TV movie. I'm not sure what would have been a more honest or realistic ending. I mostly enjoyed reading the book, but the ending made me feel like I'd been cheated, and that the rest of the book was as unreal and "made-up" as the ending.

2 1/2 stars ( )