The White

I enjoy this book and it was an easy read. Deborah Larsen takes you step by step through the trials and tribulations of the main character, Mary. It's worth investing the time to read and travel with Mary in your imagination.

"The White" is a little gem. Wholly American, with prose as spare as a Shaker rocking chair, this recounting of a true story brought me effortlessly back to 1758 Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Sixteen-year-old Mary Jemison was captured with her family by a Shawnee-and-French raiding party during the French and Indian War. When Mary was 81 years old, she told her life story to a white minister, James Seaver, and so there became a detailed record of her long life with the Seneca Nation. Deborah Larsen extrapolates from this in The White, allowing us to step into Mary Jemison's moccasins and see how it might have been. Larsen took Seaver's flowery pre-Victorian language and broke it down to a more-real essence. She tells this story in a new way, imbuing it with feeling and depth despite her bare-bones language. Professor Larsen also did a lot of research for this book and so even the crops and trees and plants ring true, as do the Seneca traditions Mary must have embraced. Mary's Native-American name was De-he-wa-mis, which can mean pretty, handsome, pleasant and good. It can also mean "two falling voices" and this is the apt translation Larsen chose. I didn't want this book to end. The author, Professor Deborah Larsen-Cowan, is also a poet, and this shows in her gorgeous interpretation of this fascinating story. Highly recommended and would make a great gift for someone!

This book of fiction is based on true historical persons and events...... The author tells the story of Mary Jamison/Jemison, a white woman who was captured by a Shawnee raiding party when she was only 16 yrs. old, near her home which later became Gettysburg, Pa. Her whole family was killed and scalped in this raid.....Mary learned the Indian ways,raised a family and never returned to the white world.....She does eventually own a large piece of land which has been a dream of hers all her life. Mary befriends a family of former black slaves and also has some white friends.....This is a beautiful poetic book. I read it in one day and loved it.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It seems to be based on a true incident, one that was fairly common at this time of a white girl being taken by Indians and successfully living amoung them. But, I didn't like the added bits, I think it was a young readers book but it was too graphic for young readers in my opinion.

I heard an interview with the author on the radio and thought I might enjoy the book. I did. It is a great read that chronicles an amazing life. I would recommend it to anyone regardless of their genre preferences.

Was very interesting. I like tha it was based on a true story. Very good read about Gettysburg area .

This book is very interesting, east meets west, I am reading it even though I willnot make the bookclub meeting in February when it will be discussed.

A great book for someone interested in early America. While the book is fiction, it is based on real events.