This ghost story brings the history of the dead to vivid life

 "How I became a Ghost" by Tim Tingle
Recommended grades: 5th-8th

Issac is a ten-year old boy of the Choctaw people, from what we now know as Mississippi. He’s already dead when he starts narrating the tale of what leads to his early demise. Death is an inevitable facet of reality for the many doomed characters in this dark story, since soldiers of the United States army have begun the destruction of and forced relocation of his people. We now know this genocidal project as the Trail of Tears.

Isaac’s existence is already on the border of the mystical while he’s still alive. He has frequent visions of danger and death before the events happen, and ghosts that only he can see are a constant presence in his tale. He also talks to his dog. None of this is seen as dangerous or unrealistic by his tribe members once he finally tells them. Ancestors visiting to impart wisdom is treated as just another part of their daily lives. This departs from the normal tropes of children’s literature, in which disbelief or shunning often come to a character with powers.

Despite his inevitable death, Isaac still succeeds in aiding his tribe as they travel west, through a harsh winter, with cruel and sadistic soldiers who seek to escalate the violence and disease at every opportunity. The violence and injustice is graphic and upsetting at many points. Which is the point.

The use of ghosts and ancestral spirits in this book to give depth and life to historical events reminds me of the Southern Gothic tradition and of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” which also uses fictional ghosts to represent the ancestral trauma and permanent scars of American history on its still-living survivors. This book is written in a much more straightforward narrative than that work, and its sympathetic characters and well-paced action sequences make it a thrilling read in parts, on top of its educational and empathetic values.

You expect the hero of a story to survive the tale of adventure that he tells you. That this hero is dead before the book even starts should tell you how unique and unpredictable this middle-grade book really is.

This is one reason this book stands apart as a notable work of children’s literature. The other is the unfortunate dearth of culturally authentic written adaptations of Native American stories. Most children’s books which proport to be taken from Native American traditions instead originate from a person outside of the culture, such as a white anthropologist, whom inevitably adapts the narrative to fit European tropes and traditions.

By contrast, the mystical and historical events at this book’s heart are, according to the Choctaw author, Tim Tingle, taken from genuine stories from his people.

I recommend this harrowing, but gripping, book for 5^th grade and up, especially if it could be added to the time period that the student is learning about the Trail of Tears in their history curriculum. Be ready for any parents or school officials who adore Andrew Jackson  to challenge it, but it’s worth that fight.

Word count: 500

Content Warnings (contains spoilers): 

lots of realistic violence, including gunfights, deaths by burning, biological warfare, smallpox, and a partial lynching. Main character death. Ghosts. Abusive authority figure. Child death. Serious criticism of the US government’s actions in the 1800’s.