"Maybe you have never read a book
written by a ghost before” begins this riveting saga of a boy who is forced to
leave his home in Mississippi and walk west with his Choctaw community to
where they are being resettled by the government. The book does not relate in
detail the historical facts of the Trail of Tears, when Choctaw and other
native peoples were relocated due to the Indian Removal Act in 1830 — partly in response to the demand by
white settlers for more land — yet readers fully experience the tragedy through the perspective of young
Isaac. Author Tim Tingle is an Oklahoma Choctaw storyteller, and his How I
Became A Ghost carries the fluid cadence of a traditional tale. Beliefs and
traditions of the Choctaw are woven naturally into Isaac’s narrative. We learn
the words yakoke (thank you), hoke (okay), and chi pisa
lachike (I will see you again, in the future). Choctaws never say goodbye,
so the phrase chi pisa lachike takes on a special poignancy when Isaac,
knowing from his tragic visions that he will die, says them to his family.
Conditions on the exodus west are hard. Many Choctaw die when the militia give
them blankets infected with smallpox, and the cold of winter is brutal, but
families remain together and resilient in the face of their losses and
hardship. Isaac isn’t sure when he will become a ghost; he is uneasy but he
knows that as a ghost he will be able, as part of the community of Choctaw
deceased, to reach back to help those still living. Indeed he does help when,
with Joseph (panther boy) and the little girl ghost Nita, he saves Naomi. What
may seem like magical beliefs are very real; the injustice and the events of
the ruinous trek will be well understood by readers. Tingle’s
great-great-grandfather walked the Trail of Tears in 1835; in 1993 Tingle
retraced those steps from Oklahoma to Choctaw homelands in Mississippi,
recording stories of tribal elders. Ages 9-12 to adult.
