School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-7-Using a diary format, Smith describes Weetamoo's life as a young teen in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1653. Constantly struggling with gender roles, she wants to hunt, and challenges boys to contests of skill. She surreptitiously follows her father as he meets with the Coat-men, or white settlers, at Plimoth Plantation. Eventually, she goes through a coming-of-age ceremony that involves a sweat lodge, fasting, and visions that foretell of later conflicts between the settlers and the Native Americans. Before the narrative comes to an abrupt end, she has matured into a future leader, or sachem, of the Pocasset tribe. A foreword explains that the real Weetamoo could not read or write, and would never have kept a diary. In the novel, Weetamoo makes line drawings on birchbark to illustrate her points, and often ponders learning to write as she observes the Coat-men, but she is not willing to convert to Christianity to do so. The final 50 pages provide further factual information, and readers may find Weetamoo's adult life more interesting than the fictionalized account of her youth. Michael Dorris's Morning Girl (Hyperion, 1992) provides a more original portrayal of early Native Americans.-Debbie Whitbeck, West Ottawa Public Schools, Holland, MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
This story of the fourteen-year-old Pocasset Indian who was a key figure in King Philip's War is presented as her thinking diary (she wouldn't have known how to read or write) and based completely on conjecture. Weetamoo's entries feature interesting details of her daily life and native rituals. Extensive back matter provides genealogy and history and offers what little information is actually known about Weetamoo. Glos. From HORN BOOK Spring 2004, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Gr. 5-8. The latest addition to the Royal Diaries series explores the everyday life of a 14-year-old Wampanoag girl in the mid-1600s. The oldest daughter of Corbitant, sachem of the Pocasset band of the Wampanoag Nation, Weetamoo was born around 1641. Aspiring to be sachem after her father, Weetamoo struggles with her impatience while trying to learn the skills that she will need to lead her people, and she attempts to understand the visions of bitter wars that come to her during her spiritual fasts. Filled with details of daily life, this diary offers a comprehensive look at seventeenth-century Wampanoag culture, including the tribe's disagreements over how best to deal with the white-skinned Coat-men. A foreword explains more about the Wampanoag, and endnotes offer detailed information about Weetamoo's family and her later life, interactions between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag. A glossary, illustrations, and maps are included, as well. The author, part Algonquin of Micmac descent, has translated her long fascination with Weetamoo into a lively yet ultimately tragic tale that vividly evokes the time period. --Karen Hutt Copyright 2003 Booklist
