Tim Tingle's Spirits Dark and Light: Supernatural Tales from the Five Civilized Tribes

[Note: This review used with permission by its author, Beverly Slapin, and may not be published elsewhere without her written consent.]

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Tingle, Tim (Choctaw), Spirits Dark and Light: Supernatural Tales from the Five Civilized Tribes. August House, 2006. 192 pages, grades 5-up; Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole

“You might see yellow knots on a floating backwater log,” Tingle cautions. “Better not reach for it, it might have teeth. Maybe it looks like a pile of leaves lying on the ground. Better not step on it, it might have fangs. Maybe it seems like a bunch of moss hanging from a tree limb. Better not touch it, it might have claws.” It might be Naloosa Falaya.

In Spirits Dark and Light, Tingle seamlessly weaves elements from traditional stories of the Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole peoples into tellings that are eerie, gruesome, frightening, poignant—and just plain satisfying. In these stories in which the world of the spirits and the natural world come together, terrible witches and conjurers stalk the careless, the dead offer advice to the living, greed is properly punished, and heroism takes many forms.

Sometimes lessons are directly stated; sometimes they are inferred; sometimes a reader will have to look pretty hard to find them. And sometimes, as Tingle tells the reader, there may not be any. “Now I am not claiming this tale to have any moral attached to it,” he says. “But if it did, it might be this: if you pull a sticker burr out of your foot, a hard sticker burr that hurts bad, once you get that sticker burr out, don’t turn right around and poke it back in.”

Tingle is a master storyteller; his flow and timing are superb. Young readers will feel like he’s talking directly to them. The stories in Spirits Dark and Light are wonderful for reading aloud at a campfire or in a darkened room.—Beverly Slapin

Tim Tingle's Crossing Bok Chitto wins book award

Tim Tingle's Crossing Bok Chitto was selected as a recipient of the Jane Addams Children's Book Awards. These awards are given annually to children's books that, according to the Jane Adams website, "promote the cause of peace, social justice, world community, and the equality of the sexes and all races as well as meeting conventional standards for excellence." Tim's book has been discussed on this blog before (see review in the "Books Discussed" section of this page.) Below is the blurb from the Jane Addams webpage. It's an outstanding book. I am very happy to see it given this distinction.

The Choctaw people live on one side of the river Bok Chitto; plantation owners and African American slaves live on the other. A secret friendship between a Choctaw girl and an African-American boy is the first link in a chain of humanity that spirits the boy’s family across the river to freedom. The folk tale is a tribute to the Choctaws and Indians of every nation who aided African Americans running from slavery. Earth-tone paintings and striking use of white express the story’s blend of reality and magic perfectly.

Good News about Tim Tingle's Crossing Bok Chitto

Tim Tingle's Crossing Bok Chitto has been selected for inclusion on the American Library Association's "2007 Notable Books List."

Visit Tim Tingle's website to learn more about his work. He is a Choctaw storyteller. Looking at his webpage, I see he's got a few other books that I will order.

Tim Tingle's CROSSING BOK CHITTO

[Note: This review used by permission of its author, Beverly Slapin. It may not be published elsewhere without written permission of the author.]

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Tingle, Tim (Choctaw), Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship & Freedom, illustrated by Jeanne Rorex Bridges (Cherokee). Cinco Puntos Press, 2006. Unpaginated, color illustrations; grades 2-5

Crossing Bok Chitto, originally one of the stories in Tingle’s excellent collection, Walking the Choctaw Road, is now a picture book.

In the early 1800s, Mississippi’s Bok Chitto River was a boundary, dividing the home of the sovereign Choctaw Nation from the “Old South” of plantation owners and their human property. Enslaved Black people who were able to get to the Choctaw side of Bok Chitto were free. According to the story, the Choctaws built a stone path just below the muddy surface of Bok Chitto—built it up in times of flooding and built it down in times of drought. It is this unseen stone path, and the generosity of a Choctaw family, that aids an enslaved Black family to cross to freedom. 

When her momma asks Martha Tom to fill her basket with blackberries for an upcoming wedding, the little girl crosses Bok Chitto, loses her way, and encounters the calling together of a Black church secreted in the Mississippi woods. After an enslaved Black father instructs his young son how to move among the white people without being seen—“not too fast, not too slow, eyes to the ground, away you go!”—Little Mo escorts Martha Tom past the plantation house and back to the river, where she shows him how to cross. The relationship between the two children and their respective families deepens, and when trouble comes—“it always does, in stories or in life, trouble comes”—magic is made, and the Black family is empowered to cross to freedom. 

There are two concerns with this otherwise extraordinary story. One is that, in moving the text from a short story to a picture book, the description of the Choctaw was changed from “a sovereign nation of people” to “a nation of Indian people.” “Sovereign” may be one of the most important words in Indian Country, and children old enough to read this book—or have it read to them—need to be taught its meaning. 

There is something else that needs to be considered. For people to be defined by their condition of servitude—“slaves”—is a social construct that holds the institution of slavery in place. Rather, the word “enslaved” places the responsibility for servitude on the owners rather than on the owned, and raises a level of consciousness that the word “slave” does not. 

These issues notwithstanding, Crossing Bok Chitto is an awesome story of survival, generosity, courage, kindness and love; enhanced by Jeanne Rorex Bridges’ luminous acrylic on watercolor board paintings on a subdued palette of mostly browns and greens. In an endnote, Tingle describes how this particular story came to be. Today, Choctaw families—as well as Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole—continue to tell the stories of how they aided the “runaway people of bondage. "

—Beverly Slapin

NY Times, Tim Tingle and Marge Bruchac

Children's books by Native authors and illustrators rarely receive attention from mainstream papers like the New York Times. So, it was a surprise and a treat to read this week's article on children's books. The article is about multicultural literature. Three books are featured, two of which are the work of Native people.

Here's the link to the article: "Children's Books".

Take a look. It includes a photograph of Choctaw storyteller Tim Tingle. His book is called Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship and Freedom. I've looked at a copy of the book. My first impression is good. His writing drew me into the story, into its time and place. I'll read it again (just returned from vacation and must prepare for the start of the school year) soon, but if anyone has read it and wants to comment, please do.


Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki? The second book featured is by Marge Bruchac. Her Malian's Song is based on an event that happened in 1759. Bruchac is Abenaki. She is also a historian using her training to write children's books that counter the feel-good story of America. She does precisely that in Malian's Song. Along with the review in the NY Times, you can listen to a Vermont Public Radio commentary about the book or read the transcript here: "Malian's Song".

For more information about Tingle and his books (there is an audio CD available), go to his webpage: "Tim Tingle, Storyteller".