News of the World

by Paulette Jiles

Hardcover, 2016

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Genres

General Fiction

Collection

Your library

Publication

William Morrow (2016), Edition: 1st Edition, 224 pages

Description

"In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered novel of historical fiction from the author of Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust. In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers 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, forming 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"--… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member jnwelch

News of the World happens in post-Civil War Texas, in a time when journeying from North Texas down to San Antonio is a long, perilous journey. 72 year old Captain Jefferson Kidd is a former soldier and newspaper publisher who agrees to take a 10 year old girl, ransomed from the Kiowa Indians, back

to her aunt and uncle. Unfortunately, her four years as a Kiowa have made her one of them, and part of the challenge is acclimating her to the quite different non-Indian life, something that has proved difficult with other kidnapped children rescued from Indians.

The captain is an honorable man, determined to fulfill his promise. The journey they take together is epic and vivid. The girl, Johanna, is exasperating in her divergent views and practices, but the captain does all he can to protect her and help her. He purchases an old green wagon which has "Curative Waters" on its side, and sets off on the journey many others question.

There's lots of dry western humor, and the two eventually learn to trust each other. Johanna, who struggles with English and thinks stealing chickens is perfectly sensible, turns out to be both brave and clever. Although feeling his years, Captain Kidd is learned and capable of dealing with difficult situations. Their relationship is one of the delights of the book. There are plenty of villains to overcome, and occasional unexpected help.

More than once I thought of the stellar Lonesome Dove. The author, Paulette Jiles, apparently is a rancher herself, and it shows in the striking world into which the reader is drawn.

"Britt smoked and turned to lean on the wagon tailgate and looked back into the dark spaces of the stable with the noise of horses and mules eating, eating, their teeth like grindstones moving one on another and the occasional snort as hay dust got up their noses, the shifting of their great cannonball feet."

“Above and behind them the Dipper turned on its great handle as if to pour night itself out onto the dreaming continent and each of its seven stars gleamed from between the fitful passing clouds.”

This short book packs in a lot of living, and is one of my favorite reads of the year.

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LibraryThing member brenzi

"Captain Kidd read carefully and precisely. His eyeglasses were round and rimmed in gold over his deep eyes. He always laid his small gold hunting watch to one side of the podium to time his reading. He had the appearance of wisdom and age and authority, which was why his readings were popular and

the reason the dimes rang into the coffee can. When they read his handbills men abandoned the saloon, they slipped out of various unnamed establishments, they ran through the rain from their fire lit homes, they left the cattle circled and bedded beside the flooding Red to come and hear the news of the distant world." (Page 60)

Witchita Falls, Texas 1870. Captain Jefferson Kidd travels through northern Texas reading the news of the world. He pores over far and distant newspapers selecting the stories he thinks will be of most interest to his varied and sundried listeners. He is approached by two free black men who offer him the documents and a fifty dollar fee if he will return a young orphan to her family in San Antonio, a long long ride away. She was taken captive by the Kiowa four years earlier.

The narrative follows the two of them on their long and arduous trip across Texas. The captain is the kindest, most caring man that ten year old Johanna could have hoped for. He has the patience and the attitude that provides a perfect guardian for her. Together they fight off gunslingers and other dangerous characters and create a bond that you know is seriously bonding them. He has his doubts about leaving her with relatives who are total strangers and may not be prepared to bring her along in the proper way.

This book really resonated with me. Beautiful prose carried me along through a totally new learning experience. I'd never heard of men traveling through the west, reading news stories for pay. Of course, it makes perfect sense and it's just another example of how much we can all learn from the reading of fiction. Wonderful story, wonderful complicated characters, unique setting at a time when Texas was still very wild and unsettled. Almost perfect. Very highly recommended.

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LibraryThing member Electablue

I enjoyed this beautifully written story of the friendship that develops between an elderly man, Jefferson Kidd, and Johanna Leonberger, the 10 year old white girl who had been "rescued" from the Kiowa in 1870 North Texas after she had lived as their captive for four years. He was hired to return

her 400 miles through areas full of all sorts of dangers.

The spare, poetic language gave the whole book a dreamlike quality and amount of research that went into the book made me feel as if I had entered North Texas during Reconstruction, but it never felt like it was researched. I live in North Texas and had heard much about this time, which seems so far removed from the present day. The elderly man, Jefferson Kidd, makes his living as an itinerant reader of newspapers bringing stories of enchanted lands far away. It makes me realize the truthfulness of the L.P. Hartley's statement, "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

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LibraryThing member froxgirl

This is a classic Western tale, from the time when restless, defeated, unpaid Confederate soldier-survivors started calling themselves "cowboys". Captain Kidd is a newsreader - he travels through Texas, stopping in small towns where there's no newspaper to read to townspeople who pay a dime each to

hear about not-so-current events from around the world (my dream job!). He is tasked with transporting a ransomed 10 year old Kiowa captive, Johanna, back to her family.

Along the journey from Wichita Falls to San Antonio, Johanna's inability to leave behind her Kiowa family (who gave her up because they were being hunted down) after five years as their daughter is problematical for the Captain, but they adapt to each other, saving each other's lives more than once. The Captain's voice is spare and wry, and the travelogue makes the reader yearn to follow their trail, full well knowing that it's all WalMarts etc now.

This is a classic, another "True Grit" for our time.

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LibraryThing member coho8

I was captivated by the concept of someone traveling from town to town reading the news. Captain Jefferson Kidd was no stranger to delivering news. At age 16 he carried messages in the War of 1812 by foot and on horseback: "Two years of directed flight across Georgia and the Alabama country,

solitary, with his information in hand." "He always recalled those two years with a kind of wonder. As when one is granted the life and the task for which one was meant." In his 70's he continued this calling as a curator of news items chosen from newspapers and read to eager audiences in the new settlements of Texas.

The Captain seemed satisfied, if not overtly happy, with the lifestyle of roving newsreader. The author beautifully conveys his appreciation of the open territory and his horse companions. Into his solitary world came upheaval, to put it mildly, when he accepted responsibility for the child, Johanna. His circuit of Texas towns uniquely qualified him to return the 10 year old fair skinned, blue eyed Kiowa captive to her closest relatives 400 miles away. Johanna, brought up in the ways and language of the Kiowa, was again carried away from a life she knew and did not want to leave. Captain Kidd agreed to escort her, taking over from a trader who left him with the warning, "Be really careful." You have to feel for each of them, one a child and one an older man, both rocked by a great change in circumstances. Their journey through the sparsely settled West with its open country and gritty towns becomes an endeavor toward some level of mutual understanding.

The writing evokes all of the senses. I savored this book not only for its great plot but for the luscious prose which had not a word out of place. Highly recommended.

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LibraryThing member Beamis12

This book dang near broke my heart...... but in a good way and solely due to the authors expertise in creating two wonderful characters with a unique relationship. captain Kidd, travels Northern Texas as a news reader, in post Civil War, Texas. He is offered a tidy sum to deliver a young girl who

was captured by the Kiowa Indians when she was six, the rest of her immediate family killed in the raid.. Now ten she is traded back and needs to be returned to her aunt and uncle, her only surviving relatives. Johanna, wants only to be returned to her Indian tribe, her adopted Indian parents and remembers little about her early life.

So they travel together, four hundred miles, and a relationship unlike any other is formed. Endearing, adventurous, descriptive writing, amazing dialogue, much humor, all the things that make a novel so good. The Captain doubts the wisdom of returning Johanna, but he is an honorable man and this is his charged duty. But is that the wisest decision? So this is what we keep reading to find out and along the way we meet many scoundrels, heroes and people who judge without understanding. Just one of those fantastic stories that the reader can't help but take to heart and have a great time along the way.

ARC from William Morrow publishers.

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LibraryThing member jphamilton

Request an ARC, get an ARC, really like said ARC. This a fine new western that reminds any reader that really fine writing can powerfully tell any story. It's got everything you'd want in a good story: guns, horses, Native Americans, seventy-plus old western story tellers, kidnapped children, and

lots of heart.

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LibraryThing member jhoaglin

I loved this story, and the characters. Set in 1870, this book tells the story of Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, and the 10 year old girl who was a former captive of the Kiowa, now rescued and being sent to be reunited with her only remaining family in San Antonio. Kidd is in his early 70's, a

veteran of two wars, and lost all his savings during the Civil War. Currently he makes a living touring small towns in north and western Texas, reading newspapers from cities far removed, to people who are starved for information about the rest of the world. Johanna has no memories of her German-American family; her identity is that of a Kiowa. When Captain Kidd is offered $50 to transport Johanna from Wichita Falls to an aunt and uncle near San Antonio, he accepts. This is the story of their journey, the struggles along the way, and the bond that develops between them. Both characters were wonderfully drawn, and the author researched the plight of captive children and their difficulties with re-assimilation.

I received an ARC of this book from LibraryThing, and from Harper Collins.

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LibraryThing member bemislibrary

The pacing really makes the reader understand how slow traveling by horse and wagon had to be. Captain Kidd, former printer and traveling new announcer, is saddled with a young girl recaptured from the Kiowa Indians just after the American Civil War. It is a painstakingly slow trip faced with

weather, equipment, and human problems. The style is a bit unusual with its lack of quotations to offset the dialogue.

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LibraryThing member caseylondon

He survived the Civil War and now Captain Jefferson Kidd travels Texas Hill Country performing readings of news stories much like an itinerant preacher riding the circuit. He soon finds himself with a young Kiowa captive that he plans to return to her German American family - as a favor and for

silver.

How this kindly, elderly printer and news reader becomes a stand-in grandfather to a scared, ten year old former Indian captive and tries to ease her re-entry to the 'civilized' world makes for a touching, interesting and highly readable novel. As in other Paulette Jiles novels the reader gets vignettes of Texas life following the Civil War, the strife between competing factions of North and South that have survived the end of the conflict, and the taming of Texas that includes skirmishes with Native Americans who fight hard for their lands.

Her books focus on people and how they engage with each other and also with themselves to discover what it is that makes them free to live their lives, what actions are important to living a good life and walking the path of righteousness. Never preachy nor religious in nature, Jiles' books (and this is no exception) have
everyday heroes who become exceptional through their actions - just as the Captain does in News of the World. Protecting a child, nurturing Johanna as he calls her and recognizing in this young child that spark, so many others would try taming into civility and ordinariness, becomes a key element of this novel. Johanna's ingenuity knows no bounds and you'll never look at a dime the same way after you read this novel.

So take the trip with The Captain and Johanna and learn about the joy of friendship, the bond between grandfather and grandchild, extraordinary tidbits about childhood captives and Texas in the post Civil War period. An entertaining and enlightening read!

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LibraryThing member lostinalibrary

It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd makes his living reading the news of the world to audiences in bars, churches or lodges across the American west at a dime a head. On one of these journeys in Witchita Falls, Texas, he is approached by an old acquaintance asking him for a favour. Would he

deliver a ten-year-old girl to her relatives in Castroville Texas? The girl, Johanna, was captured by the Kiowa when she was six. Now, she has been ransomed and is going home… except she doesn’t want to go and is making her desires very plain. Kidd reluctantly agrees and the two set out on a perilous journey. But Kidd has fought in two wars and taking Johanna home is easy despite bandits, Kiowa, and scandalized matrons. Leaving her there, on the other hand, may be the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.

News of the World by author Paulette Jiles is a beautifully written historical novel about a very interesting time and place. The story is set during a transitional period of the American west: the Civil War is over, the Indian Wars are ending with the defeat and marginalization of First Nations, and, despite the continued presence of outlaws, this is not the west of the dime novels popular at the time if it ever was any more than a fantasy of the fevered minds of eastern writers. Captain Kidd and Johanna are interesting and complex characters and even minor characters have shades of gray. The novel is less than 200 pages long, not much more than a novella but the author’s use of short active sentences gives the prose a rhythm that resounds throughout so that it came as no surprise to me, after reading this novel that Jiles was once a recipient of Canada’s Governor General’s Award for English-language poetry. But despite the length and the sparse prose, or perhaps because of them, Jiles manages to create a real sense of what the American west must have been like at a crucial time in its history.

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LibraryThing member scenik1

NEWS OF THE WORLD, Paulette Jiles
LibraryThing Early Reviewers Review

I really enjoyed this book! I found it to be a delightful little nugget (209 pages long) where each phrase packs a powerful punch. Jiles’s writing is so descriptive and enthralling that you feel like you’ve had the experience

of a much longer book. Whereas some modern writers are giving us thin tomes with thin writing, with this streamlined story every word counts and we are delivered a rich, dense and consuming narrative. Whether it is the background roar of the Red River or the crack of lightening when they are setting up camp, we are present in the world of Army Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd and Johanna. Jiles brings to life Life as it was experienced in 1870 Texas with all the instability of the region just after the end of the Civil War: U.S. relations with Spain and Mexico, land rights, the tenuous position of recently freed slaves and the dynamics with Native tribes. I found myself full of admiration and appreciation for the details that Jiles incorporates that so flesh out each scene that you know you are in very good hands. This author respects both her reader and her characters.

Kidd makes his living riding through northern Texas reading the news out of East Coast newspapers to whoever will pay a dime. With each reading, we get a snapshot of the issues and concerns of the day. One day, out of regard for the risk that would be incurred by the freed black men of the US Army who rescued her, Captain Jefferson Kidd agrees to take a young white girl off their hands and deliver Johanna, recently rescued from the Kiowa indians who had taken her in a raid that left her parents dead, to her relatives in the region of San Antonio. The ten-year-old was taken at the age of six and fully adopted into Kiowa culture. She has no memory of the English language, manners or life view. For over four hundred miles, the Captain and Johanna travel through treacherous wild terrain where violence often decides disagreements and where might means right. The two of them alone, an old man and a young confused girl, are particularly vulnerable. As they make their way, we are filled with both admiration for the noble character of Captain Kidd and compassionate concern for the vulnerable yet feisty Johanna. Here are two who would not be expected to survive, and we deeply want them to.

With all the disparate people-groups at play in this story, Paulette Jiles manages to present this clash of cultures without condemning any of them. She shows balanced compassion and empathy for the struggles of each and reveals what must be a profound respect and love for humankind. She has created two wonderful characters that are much missed after the last page is turned.

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LibraryThing member countrylife

A 72 year-old ex-soldier and a 10 year-old returned Indian captive on a Texas-sized adventure.

Captain Kidd makes his living by buying newspapers and then reading articles of news to citizens of small Texas towns. In the winter of 1870, after his reading in Wichita Falls, he accepts a charge from

Britt Johnson to bring a returned Indian captive to her remaining relatives near San Antonio. And so begins their adventure. During a perilous four hundred mile journey through a landscape inhabited by ruffians loose from the recently-ended Civil War, skittish “law” men taking advantage of state-wide political unrest and lawlessness brought about by reconstruction, and roving bands of Comanche and Kiowa, and with no shared language, the two form a bond of necessity.

I did enjoy this tale, but do not think that it’s up to par with Ms. Jiles’ other books. Exploration of the characters was not as deep. In her previous books, the insertion of historical events and people flowed more smoothly along with the story; here it felt forced in, as if the story was not full enough to accept the intrusion.

The lack of quotation marks in the dialogue bothered me only in the very beginning.

Ms. Jiles’ writing, as always, captivates me – I just wish there had been more of it in this book.

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LibraryThing member SamSattler

What could possibly be more intriguing a main character in a book about Reconstruction Era Texas than a seventy-year-old retired Army captain who makes his living as a traveling “professional reader”? Perhaps a ten-year-old little girl who has spent the last four years of her life as a captive

of the band of Kiowa who butchered her parents and little sister in front of her might just do it. And then if you have these two characters cross paths, as Paulette Jiles does in News of the World, you have the makings of what is certain to be one of the most memorable novels of 2016.

People in north Texas are hungry for news, and they will pay to hear it. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd is only too happy to bring it to them as he travels from town to town reading articles aloud from the latest East Coast newspapers he can get hold of – all for the price of one thin dime per listener. It is, in fact, the kind of solitary existence that Captain Kidd much prefers at this stage of his life. But that all changes one trip through Wichita Falls when Kidd reluctantly agrees to transport a little girl back to the aunt and uncle she has not seen since being captured by the Kiowa. The 400-mile trip from Wichita Falls to near San Antonio will prove to be a dangerous one, one that will forever bind the old man and the little girl together.

There is plenty of old fashioned western action in News of the World: threatening Indians, shootouts with bad guys who want to steal the little girl for their own purposes, rising waters and dangerous river crossings, big-hearted women of the evening, etc., and all of it is well handled by Jiles. But what makes the novel special is the relationship that develops between Captain Kidd and young Johanna as they steadily make their way southward. Johanna has forgotten everything about her life before the Kiowa took her. No longer does she speak English or German; she has forgotten how to use a knife and a fork; and she considers the idea of wearing a cloth dress to be a ludicrous one. She is now, and in her mind forever will be, a Kiowa Indian. White men – and women – terrify her, and she wants nothing to do with them.

But Johanna senses something in Captain Kidd that calms her, a level of trust that moves her to call him “grandfather” in her own language. Soon, though, their relationship has gone way beyond merely honoring the Captain with a title, and Johanna begins thinking of Kidd as her grandfather in the truest sense of the word. And perhaps surprising even himself, Kidd grows so fond of the little girl that he would willingly give his own life to save hers.

News of the World is a beautiful novel, and it deserves to find a huge audience.

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LibraryThing member pjhess

I loved this book. An amazingly good read about Texas in the wake of the civil war. Captain Kidd volunteers to transport a 10 yr old white girl who has been rescued from the Kiowa Indians after living with them for 4 yrs. They travel 400 miles through unsettled territory, where they encounter

danger and learn to rely on and understand each other. This is truly a gem of a story. I felt it was too short, but was definitely satisfied with the ending.

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LibraryThing member Ronrose1

Ex-Army Captain J. K. Kidd spends his retirement traveling the dusty roads of post Civil War Texas carrying the news to small settlements scattered throughout the state. He charges a dime a head admission as he reads the news from papers he has gathered from larger towns he has passed through. Most

townsfolk welcome him, providing, for a small fee, the use of a church, a warehouse, a barn, or a barroom for his news starved audience to gather. It’s a lonely life, but this is about to change when he learns of a ten year old girl rescued from the Kiowa Indians after four years of captivity. The blonde haired girl apparently speaks no english and has no memory of being anything but Kiowa. Kidd reluctantly agrees to accept a fee to transport the girl south to San Antonio, where he once had his home and a family. The trail is long, hard, and full of dangers, alternating between raging rivers, dry dusty prairies, Indians, thieves, and other badmen wanting the girl for their own purposes. Add to this the girl’s rebelliousness and inclination to run off back to her Kiowa people soon lead Kidd to think he may have bitten off more than he can chew. An entertaining read based in part on true characters of the old West. Book provided for review by LibraryThing.

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LibraryThing member terran

I love the idea of a man traveling from town to town to read the news of the world to isolated Americans after the Civil War. Captain Kidd is just that man and is known throughout northern Texas. When the Kiowas return a young girl from captivity, the Captain is hired to return her to her family

near San Antonio. The characters and adventures are fascinating. For people who have problems with the author's non-use of quotations, I strongly suggest they listen to an audio version. It is worth listening a second time. One of my favorite books.

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LibraryThing member stellarexplorer

This book elegantly and gently tells the story of an aging military man and a ten year old girl, taken at age six and recently released by the Kiowa Indians. The Colonel
undertakes the task of returning the girl to her remaining family through the lawless Texas under Reconstruction after the Civil

War.

Complicating matters is that she has lost all apparent memory of her previous life, and is in speech and culture now entirely Kiowan.

Beautifully written, Jiles finds a lightness in dark material. It addresses the profound difficulties in sundered cultural identifications, and speaks to the new human connections that one would hope are still possible.

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LibraryThing member whitreidtan

We all have images in our heads of the Wild West, gunslingers, and cowboys. All of it is out-sized and iconic But how many of those images grew out of Hollywood movies or TV rather than out of a truth that might be less palatable or slower or not as outrageous? Paulette Jiles' newest novel, News of

the World, finds a dreamier, more personal story set in a lawless West that does have a passing resemblance to the one depicted on screens and page but which is also more tempered and truthful feeling.

Captain Jefferson Kidd is a widower whose daughters are grown and gone. He was a soldier and a printer. Now retired from both professions, he's an itinerant news reader traveling through small towns reading articles and bringing news of the outside world to remote places in Texas. When he encounters a good man he knows in one of the towns, he agrees to take on returning a ten year old girl, a captive of the Kiowa for four years, to her aunt and uncle many miles away. The young girl, Johanna, doesn't speak English and has forgotten German. She doesn't remember life before joining her Kiowa family and she desperately wants to be returned to them. As they travel towards the white family she doesn't remember, Johanna and "Kep-dun" come to a fragile trust in each other. Kidd is weary and feeling his age. Johanna is fierce in the stoicism learned from her Native family. But ultimately they come to be each other's family, grandfather and granddaughter, on the long road, offering respect, protection, and concern for each other.

Jiles has written a slow, deliberate, and beautifully written character study here. In this novel, that sometimes has the hypnotic feel of sitting in a saddle and creaking back and forth along a trail, she has drawn a tale that captures the time, just after the Civil War when tensions were high, and the place, a Texas where the law was sometimes markedly absent, so very well. The characters of Captain Kidd and Johanna are spare and yet full. Kidd's careful selection of the news pieces for each stop on their journey to the Leonberger homestead tells not only the news of the world far from the towns they visit but also very much about the towns themselves. Told almost entirely from Kidd's perspective, with only small insights into Johanna's thoughts, the narrative leaves the child fairly enigmatic but gives the reader more insight into the goodness and personality of Kidd. The novel is quite short, muted, and quiet, despite a couple of scary situations, and it maintains a feeling of rightness and inevitable fatedness throughout its pages. It is not a wild western but a measured, almost hushed, lovely piece of work.

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LibraryThing member Cariola

This book's title, News of the World, comes from the occupation of it's main character, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, who travels from town to town in North Texas, charging a small admission for people to hear him read the news. At one stop, he is asked by an Indian agent to take on the task of

returning a 10-year old girl, Johanna Leonburger, to her nearest relations; she had been captured by Kiowa four years earlier when raiders killed the rest of her family. She wants nothing more than to escape and return to the Kiowa; she remembers nothing of white society and speaks neither English nor German. On their journey, they run into people both good and evil. What kept me involved was the growing trust and affection between the Captain and Johanna and the way they worked as a team to defeat their enemies and overcome obstacles.

This short book (only about 200 pages) was a great choice for reading during holiday travel.

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LibraryThing member hobbitprincess

I had never considered children kidnapped by Native Americans in the early days of the American West, so this book was fascinating to me. A mature gentleman who travels around reading newspapers from all over the world aloud to isolated communities agrees to return a young girl who was kidnapped to

her birth family. I especially enjoyed the relationship that develops between these two unlikely individuals. They learn from each other as they spend their days together traveling, sharing difficulties and happier times. I only found a little disconnect in a few places where I thought the action might be a little contrived - I can't go into detail without getting into spoilers. This is a book worth reading.

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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50

News of the World by Paulette Jiles turned out to be a perfect read for me. I had previously read a book by this author so I knew that it would be beautifully written, but it also turned out that the story-line was one that truly spoke to me and carried me away to a different place and time.

This

is a story of two unlikely companions bonding and growing together as they travel through Texas in 1870. One is an older man, Captain Kidd, a man who has already lived a very full life and now travels and reads various newspapers to the settlers living on this vast frontier. The other, is a young girl of 10 years, Johanna, who has been bought back from the Kiowa who took her four years ago. The Captain has been entrusted to take her back to her relatives who live in Southern Texas. Johanna is a reluctant traveller, she has become a Kiowa and has no desire to be returned to the white world. The Captain is an honorable man and he accepts that he has been chosen for this difficult mission, while the little girl puzzles over her fate, her language and her strong feelings that develop for her “Kep-dun”. Together they travel towards an unknown future and learn to totally trust one another.

This is a touching story that the author manages to keep from becoming overly sentimental. Her facts and research about children that were taken by Indians and then returned are accurate and interesting. Ultimately, News of the World is a story about the joys of freedom and the spiritual bonding that love and trust can bring. The author has delivered a first class story where each word fits perfectly into the next, creating a powerful and moving narrative.

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LibraryThing member BooksCooksLooks

What a wonderful book. It does take a little to get used to the rhythm of the writing but once you do you find yourself in the world of Captain Kidd as he tries to adapt to life after the Civil War. He is now in Texas and he wants his family there with him but he doesn’t have the money to move

them yet. He takes whatever work he can including traveling about reading the news to people in small towns – can you imagine that there was once a need for this?

In one town he is offered the rather large sum of $50 (in gold!) to take a young girl to her last remaining relatives. Her family was killed in an Indian raid and she has been living with the tribe since she was 6 years old – she is now ten and remembers no other life. She does not remember English or the German of her family. She considers herself Kiowa. She does not want to leave the people she considers her tribe.

As they embark on the trip they come to a relationship of sorts – trust does not come easy – but it’s just the two of them and it’s not easy country. Both have seen things they’d rather forget and never see again. As they spend time together they come to depend on each other but Captain Kidd knows his duty, does his duty. But sometimes duty is not right.

This is a special book. It’s one that requires more than one reading and I really wish I could just start it over again. It’s not necessarily an easy read but it will stay with you. The characters are unique and the plot while at its heart conventional, is one that will still give a surprise if you think about it. A tale of relationships, of love and of when right is sometimes wrong.

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LibraryThing member SilversReviews

Captain Kidd had experience traveling uncharted lands as he read his newspapers in different towns to spread the news of the world, but traveling with a ten-year-old girl who couldn't speak English was quite a different task for him.

Johanna had been kidnapped by the Kiowa Indians after her family

was killed in a raid, but Johanna was now released and needed to be returned to her aunt and uncle. She didn't know who they were, and they didn't know her.

NEWS OF THE WORLD flows beautifully as we follow Captain Kidd and Johanna on their 400-mile journey that Captain Kidd regretfully had accepted. He had to deal with no language communication except for a few words and sign language as well as Johanna's numerous attempts to escape.

NEWS OF THE WORLD was an enjoyable read because the writing was marvelous, the story line was interesting, and the characters were authentic and likable. Johanna grew on you. Mrs. Gannet was charming. Captain Kidd was a perfect gentleman, a wonderful father, and an all-around good guy.

I enjoyed the historical aspect of how there were folks who went from town to town reading the news. I loved the descriptions of the undeveloped country and am happy I didn't live back then. It was difficult to imagine there were no paved roads. We readers even get to be in the middle of a gun fight.

NEWS OF THE WORLD is filled with beautiful, descriptive writing that pulls you in I truly enjoyed NEWS OF THE WORLD mainly because of the characters and definitely the warmth and kindness of Captain Kidd.

If you need a quick, enjoyable, heartwarming read, NEWS OF THE WORLD fits the bill along with a history lesson. 4/5

This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation from the publisher in return for an honest review.

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LibraryThing member gayla.bassham

A lovely, charming, retro-feeling novel. Beautifully written and well-characterized. I can't say it's filled with surprises, but it's short enough to read in one sitting and a pleasant, comforting way to spend an afternoon.

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