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Thursday, January 03, 2013

Cowboys and Indians in Brandon Mull's FABLEHAVEN; RISE OF THE EVENING STAR

Thanks to Erin for letting me know about Brandon Mull's Fablehaven series...

Launched in 2007, the first book is titled Fablehaven. Subsequent ones have subtitles. I haven't read any of them, but plan to do so. The second volume is Rise of the Evening Star. Here's what Erin pointed out in her Goodreads review:



The illustration is on page 165 of the paperback. The girl in the illustration is Kendra. She's looking down at a foosball table. It doesn't look anything like any of the foosball tables I've played on...  Here's the text from page 163:
Spitted on rods were four rows of Indians and four rows of cowboys. The cowboys were all the same, as were the Indians. The cowboy had a white hat and a mustache. His hands rested on his holstered six-guns. The Indian had a feathered headdress, and his reddish-brown arms were folded across his bare chest.
Some questions... Have you seen a foosball table like that? And why was that particular scene chosen for illustration?!

When Kendra beats "the Sphinx" (he's "a black man with short, beaded dreadlocks" whose "skin was not merely a shade of brown--it was as close to truly black as Kendra had ever seen") at a game of foosball, he tells her "I feel like General Custer."

More questions... Custer? Why? What does it add to the story to have a cowboy and Indians foosball table?!  Why did Mull include any of this?

And why have no reviewers noted it?


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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousFriday, January 4, 2013 at 6:34:00 PM CST

    Chalk another one up for Mull, his treatment of race in general isn't a lick better in The Candy Shop War.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSaturday, January 5, 2013 at 10:46:00 AM CST

    Maybe he's seen this:
    http://jpomera1.blogspot.com/2009/07/buffalo-bill-historical-center-in-cody.html

    ReplyDelete


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