News of the World [Film Tie-In Edition]
Publisher,Harper Collins
Publication Date,
Format, Paperback
Weight, 136.08 g
No. of Pages, 287
It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.
In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna's parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.
Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act "civilized." Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forging a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.
Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember-strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become-in the eyes of the law-a kidnapper himself. Exquisitely rendered and morally complex, News of the World is a brilliant work of historical fiction that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.
The story is touching and tender but not maudlin. The ending or close to the ending is haunting. The relationship between the two principles is unique but to me seemed genuine and real.
What can I say here, but that I loved it. If this book is small, it is in size only. Otherwise, it is big in heart and character. In its pages I met two people will mostly likely remain with me for awhile. So once again, it has been the characters that I identified with most in recent books and through emotion. Here in News of the World it was Captain Kidd and Johanna, who at first seem so vastly different. He, who has experienced a long, full life, looks back often to memories. She at the age where life burgeons is now seen at by others as altered irrevocably. Then I saw that because of these things they needed one another to move forward, as if determined by fate.
Such a wonderful novel. Learned so much about the abduction of white children by Native Americans and how it affected their lives.