Stone River crossing

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Title :

Stone River crossing / Tim Tingle.

Title:

Stone River crossing

Author:

Tingle, Tim

Format:

Books

Physical Description:

320 pages ; 20 cm

ISBN:

9781620148235

Production / Publication Information:

[New York] : Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books, [2019]

Summary:

Martha Tom knows better than to cross the Bok Chitto River to pick blackberries. The Bok Chitto is the only border between her town in the Choctaw Nation and the slave-owning plantation in Mississippi territory. The slave owners could catch her, too. What was she thinking? But crossing the river brings a surprise friendship with Lil Mo, a boy who is enslaved on the other side. When Lil Mo discovers that his mother is about to be sold and the rest of his family left behind. But Martha Tom has the answer: cross the Bok Chitto and become free. Crossing to freedom with his family seems impossible with slave catchers roaming, but then there is a miracle -- a magical night where things become unseen and souls walk on water. By morning, Lil Mo discovers he has entered a completely new world of tradition, community, and... a little magic. But as Lil Mo's family adjusts to their new life, danger waits just around the corner. In an expansion of his award-winning picture book Crossing Bok Chitto, acclaimed Choctaw storyteller Tim Tingle offers a story that reminds readers that the strongest bridge between cultures is friendship.

Target audience note:

Grades 3-7

Language:

English

Genre:

Historical fiction.

Fantasy fiction.

Geographic Term:

Mississippi -- History -- 19th century -- Juvenile fiction.

Subject Term:

Choctaw Indians -- Juvenile fiction.

Slavery -- Juvenile fiction.

Friendship -- Juvenile fiction.

Indians of North America -- Mississippi -- Juvenile fiction.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Material Type	Library	Call Number	Item Barcode	Location
Book	Searching... North Andover - Stevens Memorial Library	J TIN	31478003605921	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Burlington Public Library	J TINGLE	32116003697402	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Chelmsford Public Library	J/FIC/TINGLE	31480011259170	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Hamilton-Wenham Public Library	J TIN	30470001807857	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Haverhill Public Library	J/FIC/TINGLE	31479007016792	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Ipswich Public Library	J TINGLE	32122002746927	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Manchester-by-the-Sea Public Library	J FIC TIN	32124001988872	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Methuen - Nevins Memorial Library	J FIC TIN	31548003268191	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Newburyport Public Library	J TINGLE	32128003781698	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Tewksbury Public Library	J FICTION TINGLE	32132003159889	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... West Newbury - G.A.R. Memorial Library	J TIN	32135001459052	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Westford - J.V. Fletcher Library	J F TINGLE	31990004785916	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

From the award-winning author of How I Became a Ghost , a tale of unlikely friendship and miracles. When Martha Tom helps Lil Mo and his family escape from the plantation across the river, it's just the beginning of a Choctaw adventure of a lifetime.

Crossing to freedom with his family seems impossible with slave catchers roaming, but then there is a miracle--a magical night where things become unseen and souls walk on water. By morning, Lil Mo discovers he has entered a completely new world of tradition, community, and ... a little magic. But as Lil Mo's family adjusts to their new life, danger waits just around the corner.

In an expansion of his award-winning picture book Crossing Bok Chitto , acclaimed Choctaw storyteller Tim Tingle offers a story that reminds readers that the strongest bridge between cultures is friendship.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Tingle, an Oklahoma Choctaw, expands on his 2006 picture book Crossing Bok Chitto in this immersive tale of the friendship between people on opposite sides of the Bok Chitto River in 1808. Based on oral histories of Native Americans helping enslaved people gain their freedom, the novel focuses on Lil Mo, a boy enslaved on a Mississippi plantation, whose accidental meeting with Martha Tom, a Choctaw girl, brings about his family's escape. After Martha Tom shows Lil Mo and his family the stone bridge that lies just beneath the river's surface and they flee the plantation's guards, they begin a new life in Choctaw Town, protected by Choctaw law. Lil Mo eagerly adapts, making friends such as Funi Man, a squirrel hunter with magical powers, and honing his skills at moving and hiding in the woods, but he faces dangers, too, from the plantation owners' henchmen as well as from an otherworldly witch owl. The story builds slowly but gradually grows gripping as Lil Mo's Choctaw friends try to destroy the powerful forces that have taken him over. Richly descriptive and leavened with humor, Tingle's complex novel offers valuable insights into rarely told history. Ages 8-12. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Horn Book Review

Martha Tom is forbidden to cross the Bok Chitto River, which separates the Choctaw Nation from a white-owned plantation. But one morning shes lured to the other side by the blackberries growing there and meets ten-year-old Lil Mo, a boy enslaved on the plantation. The two become friends, and later she helps him and his family cross the river to freedom. Tingles narrative, set in 1808 Mississippi, brings to life a multitude of fascinating characters while illuminating a little-known moment in history, when the Choctaw risked their lives and lands to help free slaves. First told by Tingle in a picture book, Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship Freedom (2006), the story is expanded here. With the help of Martha Tom and other new friends, Lil Mo begins to learn Choctaw customs, teachings, and language. The story turns harrowing when Lil Mo is ensnared by an evil owl witch who makes the boy believe that his new friends are in fact his enemies. Lil Mos adoptive Choctaw uncle Funi Man and friend Koi Loosa embark on a dangerous journey to vanquish the witch and heal Lil Mo. The book ends with a wedding that unites Choctaw friends, Lil Mo and his family, and even Lil Mos friend Joseph, the white son of a plantation guardso different by our skin, yet so alike in so many ways. Throughout the taletold with heart and much humorruns the refrain we are all in this together, a fine message for our current divisive times. A glossary/?pronunciation guide is appended. dean schneider July/Aug p.139(c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Review

A friendship between an enslaved black boy and a Choctaw girl leads to freedom. Lil Mo is one of two children in a black family enslaved on a Mississippi plantation in 1808. He meets Martha Tom, a Choctaw girl, when she crosses the Bok Chitto River to pick blackberries. Martha shows Lil Mo the secret river crossing, a shallow underwater pathway made of stones the Choctaw laid long ago. When the plantation owner decides to sell Lil Mo's mother, Martha's family helps Lil Mo's family escape across the river, where they are adopted into the Choctaw nation. Thus Lil Mo inherits an uncle, an elder by the name of Funi Man, whose humor and wisdom lighten the air of vigilance maintained to protect Lil Mo's family. As Lil Mo's family learns the language and way of life of the Choctaw, all seems well until an old witch lays a curse that impels Funi Man onto a dangerous journey to once and for all save Lil Mo's spirit. As he did in his picture book Crossing Bok Chitto (illustrated by Jeanne Rorex Bridges, 2006), Tingle (Choctaw) captures a rarely explored bond that formed during colonization between enslaved Africans and Native Americans, an alliance of survival under white colonial tyranny. He evokes a 19th-century Southern landscape, presenting it through the lens of Americans whose perspectives are too rarely shared.This vital story will deepen readers' understanding of the nation's complex history. (Historical fiction. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

On one side of Mississippi's Bok Chitto River is the plantation where Lil Mo and his family are enslaved. On the other is a settlement whose residents are members of the Choctaw Nation. After a Choctaw girl, Martha Tom, shows Lil Mo an underwater stone bridge, Lil Mo and his family are able to escape when his mother is about to be sold away. The story that follows is a potent mix of history, folkways, and friendship, often wrapped in a gossamer web of magic realism. Tingle, a member of the Choctaw Nation, draws on the group's own stories to spin a tale that begins slowly but builds and twists, until the tension and intensity will have readers at the edge of their chairs. Tingle does a particularly fine job depicting relationships. Lil Mo finds a wise yet funny ""uncle"" among the Choctaw, who helps him acclimate to a different way of life, while showing him how to see through new eyes. But other relationships are examined beyond the primary ones. Lil Mo has left behind a white friend, whose father, though one of the guards on the settlement, is not unsympathetic to Mo's family's plight. Even the maneuverings of the plantation owner are explored. The book soars, almost literally, when Lil Mo's soul is stolen by an Owl Man, a witch, whose dramatic machinations, along with those of other spirit-filled characters, give this an indelible glow.--Ilene Cooper Copyright 2019 Booklist