Last week I posted a link to an article about LeAnne Howe's Miko Kings. That post generated this comment from Jean Mendoza:
Miko Kings is published by Aunt Lute, a not-for-profit, multicultural women's press.
The article sheds some light on what LeAnne's book is like. But reading The Miko Kings itself has been a rare treat.
As you indicate, Debbie, it's "about" a great many things: Indian baseball. Being in love. Families. The real, life-and-death hazards of living in (or visiting) contested/colonized territory. Losing everything through no fault of one's own. Making choices that cost everything. And ... doing research when one has a personal stake in the outcome -- or maybe the impossibility of believing one doesn't have a personal stake in the outcome?
The author has an astonishing way with voice. More than one character addresses the reader in first person. There's skillfully rendered humor and pathos, plus love and bigotry, oppression and resistance, history and .... well, mystery. Read it! Read it! Read it! Read it!
Miko Kings may remind some readers of Linda Hogan's Mean Spirit, which focuses on Osage families in Oklahoma.
I know very little about the Negro Leagues, though one of their former players (perhaps the last surviving?) lives not far from my home community, and makes occasional appearances at public events.
The book brings up a lot of questions; makes me curious to know more about What Happened.
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