SuitabookSpirited
Nancy Holder
- Reading
- Read alongside a conversation about whose histories and traditions are being represented. Pause when cultural identity is linked to danger or deformity, and distinguish the author’s framing from the characters’ actions.
- Themes
- Cultural representation: The story uses a fictionalised Indigenous setting and combines cultural elements from several nations, while presenting a character’s difference through a Beauty-and-the-Beast-like framework. The available critical account condemns the portrayal as degrading, culturally conflated and historically confused rather than presenting it as respectful representation.
- Captivity and romance: Isabella is captured with her father and offers to remain as a hostage so that he can be released; the medicine man has ordered that she be spared. The book’s stance on this remains unclear.
- War and revenge: The story takes place during war between British and French forces, while the medicine man seeks revenge after soldiers kill his wife and child. The book’s stance on this remains unclear.
- Worth knowing
- Pay particular attention to violence and harm.