Set in New Mexico, The Storyteller by Brandon Hobson features Ziggy Echota whose mother is a missing indigenous woman. Both of Cherokee descent, sixth grade Ziggy and his older sister Moon long to know what happened to their mother, so they begin a search in the desert with “Weird Alice” as their guide.
On their journey, the two learn especially valuable lessons while the reader gains details of the Cherokee culture and its lore. As he searches, Ziggy encounters several Nunnehi, who are protectors and shape shifters. Among them are a fiddle-playing buzzard named Gus, a horse named Lampwick, and an armadillo named Andrew Jackson. Each delivers wisdom—whether about receiving the term weird as the best compliment ever, the wisdom of accepting there is no turning back time, or that violence is rarely justified.
One especially relevant moral details the power of story. Under the influence of Hobson’s pen, readers recognize that stories don’t have to be believable to be true, that storytellers have power, and that the past is a good thing to learn from but not an ideal place to live.
Ziggy’s hot air balloon navigating and motorcycle riding grandmother also imparts significant truth when she tells her grandson: “You have to learn to like yourself, Ziggy. And accept that you can’t go back to the past and change things. . . . We have to find meaning in what’s happened, and then we convey that meaning to others” (193).
Another advantage of Hobson’s novel is that it offers a connection for middle schoolers who live with anxiety. The tween years are often difficult, scary, and strange times for young people. From Ziggy, youth might gain some coping strategies as well as the understanding that they are not alone. Hobson attempts to normalize the notion of anxiety so that the catastrophic thoughts that race through the mind can be managed.
- Posted by Donna