A reader wrote to ask me about
The Spirit Trackers by Jan Bourdeau Waboose (illustrations by Francois Thisdale). Here's the description:
Cousins Will and Tom have always wanted to become Trackers just like their uncle.
While spending time with Uncle he shares the story of the Windigo with the boys. A story that seems to be coming true when Will and Tom hear strange noises outside of their bedroom window. And then they find the huge tracks in the snow. It has to be the Windigo - the Wandering Night Spirit of Winter!
And the boys know what good trackers would do so they follow the trail deep into the dark forest to uncover the mystery.
Young readers will be able to improve their tracking skills as they find clues hidden in the illustrations along with Will and Tom.
I like Waboose's other books very much, and thought I'd be using a "recommended" label for this one. But then I got to the page where the boys are outside about to follow that trail into the forest. They're afraid but intrigued, too.
The cousins stand like totems.
Totems? That threw me. I asked a lot of Ojibwe friends and colleagues in Education and English, and they all thought it an odd word to use there. The cousins are standing, still. Does "totems" gesture somehow to totem poles? I didn't like Thisdale's illustrations, either. There is a new age quality to them that I don't like at all. Published in 2017 by Fifth House Publishing, I do not recommend
The Spirit Trackers.
