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Geronimo
Acclaimed author Joseph Bruchac weaves history and suspense into a riveting account of Geronimo's last days.
"He held up his right hand to show how his third finger was bent back from being struck by a bullet. Then he thumped his palm against his chest, his shoulder, his thigh, touching places where bullets and knives had pierced his flesh...where scars showed how hard it was to kill Geronimo..."
After years of standing against the U.S. government, the great warrior and spiritual leader Geronimo's life is coming to an end, as his grandson visits him where he is imprisoned, in Fort Sill, OK in 1908.
"He held up his right hand to show how his third finger was bent back from being struck by a bullet. Then he thumped his palm against his chest, his shoulder, his thigh, touching places where bullets and knives had pierced his flesh...where scars showed how hard it was to kill Geronimo..."
After years of standing against the U.S. government, the great warrior and spiritual leader Geronimo's life is coming to an end, as his grandson visits him where he is imprisoned, in Fort Sill, OK in 1908.
360 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2006
6 people are currently reading
210 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Bruchac
279 books597 followersJoseph Bruchac lives with his wife, Carol, in the Adirondack mountain foothills town of Greenfield Center, New York, in the same house where his maternal grandparents raised him. Much of his writing draws on that land and his Abenaki ancestry. Although his American Indian heritage is only one part of an ethnic background that includes Slovak and English blood, those Native roots are the ones by which he has been most nourished. He, his younger sister Margaret, and his two grown sons, James and Jesse, continue to work extensively in projects involving the preservation of Abenaki culture, language and traditional Native skills, including performing traditional and contemporary Abenaki music with the Dawnland Singers.
He holds a B.A. from Cornell University, an M.A. in Literature and Creative Writing from Syracuse and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Union Institute of Ohio. His work as a educator includes eight years of directing a college program for Skidmore College inside a maximum security prison. With his wife, Carol, he is the founder and Co-Director of the Greenfield Review Literary Center and The Greenfield Review Press. He has edited a number of highly praised anthologies of contemporary poetry and fiction, including Songs from this Earth on Turtle's Back, Breaking Silence (winner of an American Book Award) and Returning the Gift. His poems, articles and stories have appeared in over 500 publications, from American Poetry Review, Cricket and Aboriginal Voices to National Geographic, Parabola and Smithsonian Magazine. He has authored more than 70 books for adults and children, including The First Strawberries, Keepers of the Earth (co-authored with Michael Caduto), Tell Me a Tale, When the Chenoo Howls (co-authored with his son, James), his autobiography Bowman's Store and such novels as Dawn Land, The Waters Between, Arrow Over the Door and The Heart of a Chief. Forthcoming titles include Squanto's Journey (Harcourt), a picture book, Sacajawea (Harcourt), an historical novel, Crazy Horse's Vision (Lee & Low), a picture book, and Pushing Up The Sky (Dial), a collection of plays for children. His honors include a Rockefeller Humanities fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship for Poetry, the Cherokee Nation Prose Award, the Knickerbocker Award, the Hope S. Dean Award for Notable Achievement in Children's Literature and both the 1998 Writer of the Year Award and the 1998 Storyteller of the Year Award from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. In 1999, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas.
As a professional teller of the traditional tales of the Adirondacks and the Native peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Joe Bruchac has performed widely in Europe and throughout the United States from Florida to Hawaii and has been featured at such events as the British Storytelling Festival and the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee. He has been a storyteller-in-residence for Native American organizations and schools throughout the continent, including the Institute of Alaska Native Arts and the Onondaga Nation School. He discusses Native culture and his books and does storytelling programs at dozens of elementary and secondary schools each year as a visiting author.
He holds a B.A. from Cornell University, an M.A. in Literature and Creative Writing from Syracuse and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Union Institute of Ohio. His work as a educator includes eight years of directing a college program for Skidmore College inside a maximum security prison. With his wife, Carol, he is the founder and Co-Director of the Greenfield Review Literary Center and The Greenfield Review Press. He has edited a number of highly praised anthologies of contemporary poetry and fiction, including Songs from this Earth on Turtle's Back, Breaking Silence (winner of an American Book Award) and Returning the Gift. His poems, articles and stories have appeared in over 500 publications, from American Poetry Review, Cricket and Aboriginal Voices to National Geographic, Parabola and Smithsonian Magazine. He has authored more than 70 books for adults and children, including The First Strawberries, Keepers of the Earth (co-authored with Michael Caduto), Tell Me a Tale, When the Chenoo Howls (co-authored with his son, James), his autobiography Bowman's Store and such novels as Dawn Land, The Waters Between, Arrow Over the Door and The Heart of a Chief. Forthcoming titles include Squanto's Journey (Harcourt), a picture book, Sacajawea (Harcourt), an historical novel, Crazy Horse's Vision (Lee & Low), a picture book, and Pushing Up The Sky (Dial), a collection of plays for children. His honors include a Rockefeller Humanities fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship for Poetry, the Cherokee Nation Prose Award, the Knickerbocker Award, the Hope S. Dean Award for Notable Achievement in Children's Literature and both the 1998 Writer of the Year Award and the 1998 Storyteller of the Year Award from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. In 1999, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas.
As a professional teller of the traditional tales of the Adirondacks and the Native peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Joe Bruchac has performed widely in Europe and throughout the United States from Florida to Hawaii and has been featured at such events as the British Storytelling Festival and the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee. He has been a storyteller-in-residence for Native American organizations and schools throughout the continent, including the Institute of Alaska Native Arts and the Onondaga Nation School. He discusses Native culture and his books and does storytelling programs at dozens of elementary and secondary schools each year as a visiting author.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
April 27, 2019
“They will tell stories about you as long as the wind blows through the canyons and men have memories. And the land will not forget you, either” ...Bruchac.
For some reason, Geronimo’s stories fill my feed. A previous visiting author to ISD is now researching and writing about Geronimo. Her posts come into my feed. And the ISD Library has a copy of Bruchac’s 2006 book, Geronimo. I seem to be surrounded by sign that I need to learn about this man from my home state. So I check out the ISD copy and settle in for a heartbreaking and beautiful read.
By doing so, I’ve opened up a peek into a chasm of missing information from Arizona school curriculum and American educational curriculum. My levels of ignorance about my home state are staggering. Reading this one fictionalized account of a young Apache who lived to tell Geronimo’s story has shown me that all the knowledge I thought was a vast quantity is only barely enough to fill a thimble. I have so much more reading and learning to do about the indigenous of my home state.
I’ve also decided to add Geronimo’s story to my National Hispanic Heritage Timeline Project. Being Apache seems to be complicated for us “white eyes”. The Apache nations spread across the southwest region that is now divided by the US - Mexican border. Prior to reading this book, I was only familiar with Geronimo’s famed hideout in the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona. I did not know that there were several groups spread out both above and below the US-Mexico border. Geronimo’s nation, the Deindai, came from Mexico, where Geronimo was born. He moved to Southern Arizona because of “marriage and other circumstances” so he lived “with the Warm Springs People” (9).
Were those other circumstances evasion of Mexican soldiers who would capture Indians and turn them “into a household slave or sent to work in the mines?” (62). The Apaches were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Between the U.S. Government and the Mexican Government.
Reading Geronimo’s story makes me aware that there aren’t too many different manifestations of oppression on American soil. Everything old is new again is how I believe the cliched expression goes. What Geronimo and his nation went through on American soil is not too very different from the current migration narrative playing out on the US - Mexican border. Geronimo, his family, and all the other Chiricahua Apaches were taken prisoner and forcibly migrated to prisoner-of-war camps in Florida, Alabama, and Oklahoma, (read: for-profit detention centers). At a certain point in the forced migration, the men were separated from the women and children. (Hmph. Sound familiar?) Women and children in the train cars in the front. The Chiricahua men in the last cars. And then they are purposefully split. The wailing women watch, helplessly, as their sons, fathers, and husbands are taken on another track to another place.
The conditions for the women and children in the Florida camps were shameful. Stuffed into a room. No private place to wash or relieve themselves. One communal bucket for bowel movements.
The US Military’s malicious break up of the family unit served one purpose: “The Apaches are broken in spirit and humbled to the dust”, a quote from General Crook, (yes, his real name), as quoted in The New York Times, January 28, 1890. But the breaking of the spirit did not end there. Then the US government came up with a plan to assimilate the Indians. Soldiers came into the women’s camp and forcibly removed the boys old enough to be sent off to boarding school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Their hair is cut. Their names are changed. Their language is taken from them. They are christianized. And they are “farmed” out as manual labor to the farmers in Pennsylvania. The other slavery not written about in US educational history books. But the Chiricahua children struggle in this environment. They catch the “coughing sickness”, and if they don’t die there in Pennsylvania, they are returned to the Prisoner-of-War Camp in Florida and to their mothers, who receive their sick bodies and prepare them for death. Those who don’t catch the coughing sickness and do get returned to their families in the prisoner-of-war camps return with broken spirits. How can one be Chiricahua without the ability to speak their prayers in their own language or perform their own rituals in their own language?
Years pass, and the US Government decides the Chiricahua Apaches have been humbled enough. The women and small children can be reunified with their men. They are put on trains and taken to Alabama.
More years pass, and the U.S. Government decides that these Chiricahua’s can receive citizen-like benefits if they join the US Military and serve the United States. (Hmph. Sound familiar?) But the cost of these Prisoner-of-War camps is taxing to the US govt. The Chiricahuas have to be discharged, and by doing so, they become “free” and no longer the financial responsibility of the US government. The catch is that they can not return to the Prisoner-of-War Camps where their families are. Lieutenant Allyn Capron is quoted in the Mobile Register: “These discharged Apaches can no longer be held, but must be sent away from the presence of the other prisoners. Each has a family at the post from which they are being separated, probably for all time” (August 23, 1894). The discharged Chiricahua Apaches return to Arizona, but their families are still in Oklahoma and Alabama. To be reunited with them, they can reenlist in the US Military, but then they surrender their freedom. Many of these “freed” Apaches reenlist so they can be reunited with their families who are still prisoners of war and again become prisoners of war themselves.
I don’t know if my heart can handle all of these painful narratives. But I do know that my home state has a county named after Cochise, who fought with Geronimo and Mangas Coloradas. I do feel a responsibility to be a more informed resident of my home state and to know the history of Arizona. The names of these two other Apaches were unknown to me before reading this book, but the overlapping narratives of these men to that of Geronimo means there is a wealth of learning to do.
For some reason, Geronimo’s stories fill my feed. A previous visiting author to ISD is now researching and writing about Geronimo. Her posts come into my feed. And the ISD Library has a copy of Bruchac’s 2006 book, Geronimo. I seem to be surrounded by sign that I need to learn about this man from my home state. So I check out the ISD copy and settle in for a heartbreaking and beautiful read.
By doing so, I’ve opened up a peek into a chasm of missing information from Arizona school curriculum and American educational curriculum. My levels of ignorance about my home state are staggering. Reading this one fictionalized account of a young Apache who lived to tell Geronimo’s story has shown me that all the knowledge I thought was a vast quantity is only barely enough to fill a thimble. I have so much more reading and learning to do about the indigenous of my home state.
I’ve also decided to add Geronimo’s story to my National Hispanic Heritage Timeline Project. Being Apache seems to be complicated for us “white eyes”. The Apache nations spread across the southwest region that is now divided by the US - Mexican border. Prior to reading this book, I was only familiar with Geronimo’s famed hideout in the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona. I did not know that there were several groups spread out both above and below the US-Mexico border. Geronimo’s nation, the Deindai, came from Mexico, where Geronimo was born. He moved to Southern Arizona because of “marriage and other circumstances” so he lived “with the Warm Springs People” (9).
Were those other circumstances evasion of Mexican soldiers who would capture Indians and turn them “into a household slave or sent to work in the mines?” (62). The Apaches were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Between the U.S. Government and the Mexican Government.
Reading Geronimo’s story makes me aware that there aren’t too many different manifestations of oppression on American soil. Everything old is new again is how I believe the cliched expression goes. What Geronimo and his nation went through on American soil is not too very different from the current migration narrative playing out on the US - Mexican border. Geronimo, his family, and all the other Chiricahua Apaches were taken prisoner and forcibly migrated to prisoner-of-war camps in Florida, Alabama, and Oklahoma, (read: for-profit detention centers). At a certain point in the forced migration, the men were separated from the women and children. (Hmph. Sound familiar?) Women and children in the train cars in the front. The Chiricahua men in the last cars. And then they are purposefully split. The wailing women watch, helplessly, as their sons, fathers, and husbands are taken on another track to another place.
The conditions for the women and children in the Florida camps were shameful. Stuffed into a room. No private place to wash or relieve themselves. One communal bucket for bowel movements.
The US Military’s malicious break up of the family unit served one purpose: “The Apaches are broken in spirit and humbled to the dust”, a quote from General Crook, (yes, his real name), as quoted in The New York Times, January 28, 1890. But the breaking of the spirit did not end there. Then the US government came up with a plan to assimilate the Indians. Soldiers came into the women’s camp and forcibly removed the boys old enough to be sent off to boarding school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Their hair is cut. Their names are changed. Their language is taken from them. They are christianized. And they are “farmed” out as manual labor to the farmers in Pennsylvania. The other slavery not written about in US educational history books. But the Chiricahua children struggle in this environment. They catch the “coughing sickness”, and if they don’t die there in Pennsylvania, they are returned to the Prisoner-of-War Camp in Florida and to their mothers, who receive their sick bodies and prepare them for death. Those who don’t catch the coughing sickness and do get returned to their families in the prisoner-of-war camps return with broken spirits. How can one be Chiricahua without the ability to speak their prayers in their own language or perform their own rituals in their own language?
Years pass, and the US Government decides the Chiricahua Apaches have been humbled enough. The women and small children can be reunified with their men. They are put on trains and taken to Alabama.
More years pass, and the U.S. Government decides that these Chiricahua’s can receive citizen-like benefits if they join the US Military and serve the United States. (Hmph. Sound familiar?) But the cost of these Prisoner-of-War camps is taxing to the US govt. The Chiricahuas have to be discharged, and by doing so, they become “free” and no longer the financial responsibility of the US government. The catch is that they can not return to the Prisoner-of-War Camps where their families are. Lieutenant Allyn Capron is quoted in the Mobile Register: “These discharged Apaches can no longer be held, but must be sent away from the presence of the other prisoners. Each has a family at the post from which they are being separated, probably for all time” (August 23, 1894). The discharged Chiricahua Apaches return to Arizona, but their families are still in Oklahoma and Alabama. To be reunited with them, they can reenlist in the US Military, but then they surrender their freedom. Many of these “freed” Apaches reenlist so they can be reunited with their families who are still prisoners of war and again become prisoners of war themselves.
I don’t know if my heart can handle all of these painful narratives. But I do know that my home state has a county named after Cochise, who fought with Geronimo and Mangas Coloradas. I do feel a responsibility to be a more informed resident of my home state and to know the history of Arizona. The names of these two other Apaches were unknown to me before reading this book, but the overlapping narratives of these men to that of Geronimo means there is a wealth of learning to do.
June 6, 2017
It is evident that Bruchac really did his research. The result is a novel that opens readers' eyes to some of the United State's not-so-pretty history. Although a little difficult to follow the plot at times, the dates at the beginning of the chapter along with the timeline at the end of the book are helpful. Overall, the book is a culturally-enriching read with unique perspective.
May 19, 2022
I always appreciate when an author has done his homework, and in telling the story of Geronimo and his fellow Chiricahua Apache tribesmen and their surrender, removal from their homeland in the southwest, and cultural assimilation throughout the 1880s, Joseph Bruchac has definitely done his homework. The book is filled with details of Apache life–how people who live bad lives come back as bears, which animals are good to eat and which aren't, how speaking the name of the dead dishonors them. Bruchac even brings in the arrival of Richard Henry Pratt, who took many Apaches to his Carlisle Indian school for “education.”
And yet, despite this attention to detail, or, perhaps, because of it, the story seems to lose some of its momentum. While there are some side stories that are relevant and bolster the pride and courage of the Apache people, there are some that distract from it, leading to moments where it feels like Bruchac merely wanted to insert his historical knowledge. The endless number of quotes at the beginning of each chapter is symptomatic of this. And by the end, the story strays too far from Geronimo himself.
The book does a solid job presenting one one of its main goals: reversing the roles of the Apache and the American settlers. The Apache, so often the bloodthirsty savages of western films, here are only violent when they have to be and better at personal hygiene than most Americans of the time. There is a logic to their customs and behavior on display that is often missing.
Typically, my biggest problem with historical fiction is that I begin wondering what is real and what is fictional and become more focused on this than I do on the story. And, despite its notable qualities, this is still a problem for me here. Personally, I’d be better off with a straightforward account of the larger than life Apache soldier and medicine man.
And yet, despite this attention to detail, or, perhaps, because of it, the story seems to lose some of its momentum. While there are some side stories that are relevant and bolster the pride and courage of the Apache people, there are some that distract from it, leading to moments where it feels like Bruchac merely wanted to insert his historical knowledge. The endless number of quotes at the beginning of each chapter is symptomatic of this. And by the end, the story strays too far from Geronimo himself.
The book does a solid job presenting one one of its main goals: reversing the roles of the Apache and the American settlers. The Apache, so often the bloodthirsty savages of western films, here are only violent when they have to be and better at personal hygiene than most Americans of the time. There is a logic to their customs and behavior on display that is often missing.
Typically, my biggest problem with historical fiction is that I begin wondering what is real and what is fictional and become more focused on this than I do on the story. And, despite its notable qualities, this is still a problem for me here. Personally, I’d be better off with a straightforward account of the larger than life Apache soldier and medicine man.
June 1, 2024
The book “Geronimo” by Joseph Bruchac starts out by introducing us to the narrator, Geronimo’s unnamed grandson. The story is set in the Chiricahua home of Arizona during the late 1880s where they are actively systemically being eradicated by the US government in the form of death marches and biological warfare. This book was interesting from the start; most historical fictions are about widely known topics like great wars or historical time frames in America and Europe. It was really interesting to read about an Apache warrior and Native American history because it's simply so uncommon and overlooked in literature. When I first started reading, the unique language and native american slang caught my attention. Firstly the names, Like Little Foot and Eagle Flies were interesting to me because I had never heard of simply blunt adjectives and noun names, but it seems it is common in native communities. Secondly, white people are referred to as “White Eyes”, a name given to them by apaches for their obviously lighter complexion. These are just some of the intriguing language devices used by Bruchac to impose a sense of native culture and even possibly a feeling of uncomfortability or shock factor to readers that are unfamiliar with the mistreatment of natives in the 18th-19th centuries.
The main conflict in this book is the Apache’s struggles to resist the cruel oppression by the US government during the closing of the frontier. Geronimo spearheads heavy resistance most of his life as an apache warrior; he quotes, "I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive. Wisdom and peace come when you start living the life the creator." (Bruchac 311) His leadership skills and charisma are evident throughout this book, and his presence is felt even during the stretches where he is absent and his people are suffering to the hands of the US army. Their situation seems dire and hopeless, and that theme persists throughout the book, even at climax and ending. Eventually Geronimo is captured after much resistance during his final confrontation and the frontier finally seems to be closed for the American settlers. I never really grew a strong connection with any of the main characters despite trying, but I did hate the US military in this book quite a lot. Geronimo is a controversial character. Some may call him a brave freedom fighter, and others may call him a butcher or a vigilante. My view on Geronimo is more that of the former; a man that wants to protect his people and govern himself. His character is well represented by his quote, "Don't be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try." (Bruchac 121) Bruchac did a fantastic job of painting the US army as the villains and stirring up emotions. My initial impressions of the book unfortunately did not stick throughout the book; it just grew exponentially slower and my excitement wore down throughout the book due to the slower pacing. The book, due to its unique historical situation, was hard to predict, making for good and bad surprises, which was good to fight against the slightly boresome pacing.
Overall, the book was slightly slow and the pacing was not where I would've liked it to be. This book seemed to drag on with hard to understand topics and weirdly placed points in the plot. This book also backtracked on itself and it was easy to get bored. I finished reading this book after trudging through the resolution for 60 pages. The ending is realistic but not exactly a nail biter and I'm never a fan of sad endings, but with this book a sad ending could be predicted from the first page. I would give this book a ⅗ stars, because I did enjoy the beginning and learning about apache history through the book. I think people willing to learn about history and the lesser thought about topics would find this book interesting like myself.
The main conflict in this book is the Apache’s struggles to resist the cruel oppression by the US government during the closing of the frontier. Geronimo spearheads heavy resistance most of his life as an apache warrior; he quotes, "I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive. Wisdom and peace come when you start living the life the creator." (Bruchac 311) His leadership skills and charisma are evident throughout this book, and his presence is felt even during the stretches where he is absent and his people are suffering to the hands of the US army. Their situation seems dire and hopeless, and that theme persists throughout the book, even at climax and ending. Eventually Geronimo is captured after much resistance during his final confrontation and the frontier finally seems to be closed for the American settlers. I never really grew a strong connection with any of the main characters despite trying, but I did hate the US military in this book quite a lot. Geronimo is a controversial character. Some may call him a brave freedom fighter, and others may call him a butcher or a vigilante. My view on Geronimo is more that of the former; a man that wants to protect his people and govern himself. His character is well represented by his quote, "Don't be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try." (Bruchac 121) Bruchac did a fantastic job of painting the US army as the villains and stirring up emotions. My initial impressions of the book unfortunately did not stick throughout the book; it just grew exponentially slower and my excitement wore down throughout the book due to the slower pacing. The book, due to its unique historical situation, was hard to predict, making for good and bad surprises, which was good to fight against the slightly boresome pacing.
Overall, the book was slightly slow and the pacing was not where I would've liked it to be. This book seemed to drag on with hard to understand topics and weirdly placed points in the plot. This book also backtracked on itself and it was easy to get bored. I finished reading this book after trudging through the resolution for 60 pages. The ending is realistic but not exactly a nail biter and I'm never a fan of sad endings, but with this book a sad ending could be predicted from the first page. I would give this book a ⅗ stars, because I did enjoy the beginning and learning about apache history through the book. I think people willing to learn about history and the lesser thought about topics would find this book interesting like myself.
November 4, 2018
Joseph BruchacGeronimoGeronimo
I think it was a pretty good book in all. It was kind of hard for me to keep up with all of the events that happened in the book. It was a little difficult to understand. I do think the characters were very realistic though. The characters in the book such as Little Foot, Geronimo, Martine, Kayitah, and Kanseah are very weirded out by the American's or White Eyes' life style. I do not know any people who are like the characters in this book. In the book the American soldiers are taking the Apache tribes on a trip throughout the country to try and find them a reservation. Little Foot (the narrator) writes of his stories on this trip across the country. His stories sound very cool. Also when they are on their trip Little Foot tells of his stories about Geronimo. They travel so far and it is a very good story to read. Overall I liked the book pretty well but I definitely didn't love it.
I think it was a pretty good book in all. It was kind of hard for me to keep up with all of the events that happened in the book. It was a little difficult to understand. I do think the characters were very realistic though. The characters in the book such as Little Foot, Geronimo, Martine, Kayitah, and Kanseah are very weirded out by the American's or White Eyes' life style. I do not know any people who are like the characters in this book. In the book the American soldiers are taking the Apache tribes on a trip throughout the country to try and find them a reservation. Little Foot (the narrator) writes of his stories on this trip across the country. His stories sound very cool. Also when they are on their trip Little Foot tells of his stories about Geronimo. They travel so far and it is a very good story to read. Overall I liked the book pretty well but I definitely didn't love it.
May 21, 2021
This was an amazing book about parts of Geronimo's life (told my his grandson). Joseph Bruchac really did his research when writing this and it was absolutely wonderful and heartbreaking to read. There is a lot of things that I learned about the Chiricahua Apaches. One thing I do want to add is that this book is 360 pages instead of the number that good reads claims it is.
December 13, 2023
As with the previous two books by Joseph Bruchac, I didn't enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. The book was only partly about Geronimo and after detailing about most of Geronimo's life as a prisoner of war there was a rush to get to the end. Not sure if I will read any more of Bruchac's books.
March 25, 2020
For some reason Goodreads says this book has 240 pages, but this book actually has 360 pages
July 2, 2023
I really enjoyed this novel. I learned a lot I didn't know before. There are some hard hitting parts in this book. Many that made me sad and many that made me mad.
December 4, 2012
"Geronimo" is about the Apache Indians, who were forced to move from place to place by the U. S. government. They started in their homeland of modern day Arizona, to Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Florida. At one point, a tribe in North Carolina was going to sell some of their land to give to the Apaches to have them live nearby as cousins, but the government wouldn't allow it. Many of the tribe's children were sent to an industrial school and died of tuberculosis.
This book was written from point of view of Geronimo's nephew, and it backtracked so much that I found it hard to follow. It started in the middle/end of their journey, so I didn't get a sense of how their lives were before the government intervened. The book didn't explain why the Apache were prisoners of war, or why Geronimo was important to the Apache tribe.
People who know about Geronimo's life and journey, and United State history would probably enjoy reading this book to understand the Native American Indian point of view, but overall, there are other books by Joe Bruchac that I like better.
This book was written from point of view of Geronimo's nephew, and it backtracked so much that I found it hard to follow. It started in the middle/end of their journey, so I didn't get a sense of how their lives were before the government intervened. The book didn't explain why the Apache were prisoners of war, or why Geronimo was important to the Apache tribe.
People who know about Geronimo's life and journey, and United State history would probably enjoy reading this book to understand the Native American Indian point of view, but overall, there are other books by Joe Bruchac that I like better.
Read
November 4, 2012Geronimo is a historical fiction book being told as a story from his grandson’s perspective. The story being told is slow but it gets the point and information across. It is a true story about Geronimo's Apache tribe is being brought to a reservation. This Indian tribe is being forced off their land onto a reservation because there is gold on the land that the whites want. The Apaches leader has stood against the U.S army and his life is coming to an end as they don't know what to do with him. The Indians lives are hard. Even though they have a home on the reservation they still aren't treated right, they don’t receive enough of food, and it’s not their home. It’s also very hard without their leader His grandson tries his hardest to visit him and see him while he is still alive along with wanting to be back home.
March 22, 2009
I had a hard time getting into this book. I did enjoy the historical aspect of it and the things I learned about the Apache people. The storytelling narration is quite heavy and at times almost too heavy. I liked the story, I just wasn't 'in the mood' when I read it. I had read another book by the same author and it was similar in many ways. If you are looking for a good Native American fiction writer then I think Joseph Bruchac is one of the better ones. But my all time favorite is Sherman Alexie.
January 18, 2017
I did not know this when I got it, but this is aimed more at a juvenile audience. Not written like a straightforward bio -- it's written from the point of view of his grandson, who shared experiences in captivity in Florida and Alabama. So all of the timeline covers not Geronimo's life as a warrior and chief (except in flashbacks or recounted stories) but the entirety of his captivity as a POW. So as you might guess, the element of plot is a wee bit thin.
It is good tho at describing how life really was for the Apaches after surrender.
It is good tho at describing how life really was for the Apaches after surrender.
December 11, 2009
I loved this book! The history and the point of view from the Apaches and the poor treatment they were inflicted upon was real. The pain and the suffering made them all the stronger for their beliefs in a changing world. I have a greater respect and under-standment of the Apache background and the force of nature that made their freedoms lost all for greed.
August 29, 2011
In 1886, the great Chiricahau Apache leader Gironimo and his people, including narrator grandson Little Foot, are transfered to Florida as prisoners of war. This is the factually based story of their exile to Florida and Alabama, the humiliation, abuse, illness, and hardship they endure.
October 5, 2008
Slow but good history of our the mistakes we made with Native tribes.
January 26, 2009
Excellent historical fiction about the life of an American Indian.
December 24, 2011
I enjoy Bruchac's word choice. This is a different perspective from the other Geroniomo title I read.
July 6, 2014
The biography of the Apache leader Geronimo from a different perspective. A good read for anyone interested in the natives of the American Southwest.
January 2, 2013
A good book, and while it may/may not be true, i'm very inclined to list it under non-fiction. However, it is brilliant as a novel, explaining about the Great Native American Geronimo.
June 18, 2014
The book has good information, but it is poorly written.
January 19, 2016
Well written for a easy read.
April 26, 2017
The book was good, but had a difficult time keeping my attention.
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