Disclaimer: This is an adaptation of a movie. This is for middle level readers – chapters and no pictures. I saw part of the movie and didn’t like it. The book was a gift. My comments about the plot are not reflective of the author who doesn’t even get listed in my edition. She had to work with the plot from the movie.
Spirit is the story of a stallion in the Old West and his adventures as he gets captured by white men. First, let me say, in terms of mechanics of writing the book is good. It is more than competent, and there is some humor.
It’s the plot I have issue with. First, I know this is a children’s book, but really, having Spirit become leader of the herd he was born into is highly unlikely and is so gender based I don’t know where to start. But that is not my main problem. And let’s be fair, it is a children’s book and not ever horse book is going to be like Henry or Farley. Honestly, look at the Lion King. If we went all technical there, Simba and Nayla are half siblings who end up as a couple. So, I’ll admit I’m being hyper critical with this point.
My main problem is the heavy handed symbolic crap. Let’s be up front. What whites did to Native American was morally and ethically wrong. It was horrible. It was genocide. Let’s be further up front, there was a far different sense of stewardship and control of the environment in Native tribes. Read 1491 and you get the idea. But this book – I’m sorry. I don’t mind the white people are the evil people trying to kill Spirit’s, well Spirit (and they would have gelded him, btw), but the over romanticized view of the Native Americans just set my teeth on edge. Spirit is saved, in part, from the army by Little Creek, a Native American who was prisoner. He takes Spirit with him and plans to tame him. His methods are far gentler and more humane. Yet, at the end of the book, he lets Spirit go. This makes no sense. In fact, Little Creek also lets Rain, his horse, go with Spirit because he is far closer to the environment than the white people. Little Creek, Rain, Spirit, all “natural” names. But in many tribes that lived closely with horses, horses were seen as a source of wealth, especially a horse like Spirit that you took from an enemy. By having Little Creek fit the pro-wildlife message, the story is presenting an overly romantic and simplistic view of any Native American culture and is just so blah. It seems insulting to me. But then, I’m a white chick so what do I know. It just seems as damaging and insulting as those “Indians” in most of the Old Westerns, just the other extreme.
And this was the problem I had with the movie. It just does history such a disservice and really doesn’t add to any meaningful conversation about race. Granted, the book and movie weren’t suppose to do this at all, but it seems to do a disservice to everyone in doing so.
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