A Tribe for Lexi

by C.S. Adler

While spending the summer at her cousin's farm in upper New York State, Lexi finds that, of all her cousins, only withdrawn Jeb, offers her friendship and Lexi decides to help him attain his heart's desire

158 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

C.S. (Carole) Adler moved to Tucson, Arizona, after spending most of her life in upstate New York. She was an English teacher at Niskayuna Middle School for nearly a decade. She is a passionate tennis player, grandmother, and nature lover, and has been a full-time writer since the publication of her first book,The Magic of the Glits, in 1979. That book won both the William Allen White Award and the Golden Kite Award.

Her bookThe Shell Lady’s Daughter was chosen by the A.L.A. as a best young adult book of l983. With Westie and the Tin Man won the Children’s Book Award of the Child Study Committee in l986, and that committee has commended many of Adler’s books. Split Sisters in l987 and Ghost Brother in 1991 were I.R.A. Children’s Choices selections. One Sister Too Many was on the 1991 Young Adults’ Choices list. Always and Forever Friends and Eddie’s Blue Winged Dragon were on a 1991 I.R.A. 99 Favorite Paperbacks list.

Many of her books have been on state lists and have also been published in Japan, Germany, England, Denmark, Austria, Sweden, and France.

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an okay read. I picked it up for $1 at the bookshop so I'm not mad at the money I spent. I don't really regret buying it but I'm not ecstatic to have it either. I don't know if I would read it again, I might someday. I did read the ending first in the store to see if it was good or not, so I definitely ruined the plot for myself by skimming the end.

spoilers ahead*
I liked that Lexi stuck up for her cousin Jeb, whose older brother was hitting him because Jeb had lost his signed baseball. She called him a bully, she said Jeb's her cousin and if he didn't stop it he'd be sorry. I liked that she liked being outdoors, fishing, reading and animals and that she didn't fit in and people thought she was weird, even her cousins. I could relate to her in that she didn't fit in.

I expected Trueblood, Jeb's Indian friend, to be their age, that maybe there was something there between her and Lexi, but he was a man which I didn't like. He drinks at the tavern, Jeb told her later than Trueblood told him about women, and I'm thinking what exactly does he tell this 11 year old boy about women? But it wasn't explained. His left cheek was scarred, he was a tall man with rotten teeth, and he growled and mocked Lexi all the time and was rude to her. She didn't buy his story about there being Indians living in the Catskill Mountains. She realized the pot he said was Indian-made wasn’t because she saw the China sticker on the bottom. She said she didn’t believe him and Trueblood told Jeb his cousin was smart, that maybe what she had in her head was better than being able to cook and sew and shoot the bow, which Jeb had told Trueblood she couldn’t do. He said the Iroquois made the smart old woman their leader and she chose the chief. The women ran the camp while the men hunted. They planted and fished and made clothes, everything needed to live. They all worked in a group and shared. He said that Indian boys never give up their secrets to the enemy. They could rip his nails out, bite off the ends of his fingers, burn him and he would never tell. He wound sing his war song in their faces while they killed him. An Indian finds truth in his dreams. A boy becomes a man by going off in the woods alone to fast and suffer until he dreams of his guardian spirit and only when he gets his guardian spirit does he go back to his people. He said the Iroquois women had the power. They owned everything, except the land which no one owned. The husband married into her wealth and moved into her longhouse with her family. They made corn bread, corn pudding, smoked, dried, cracked and ground corn. They used the cobs for scrubbing things and the pieces as stoppers. They burned the husks for fuel and used them to make dolls.

I didn’t like how Lexi kept doing everything wrong. She didn’t wash the lettuce off for the salad, she cut it with a knife instead of tearing it off, which isn’t a big deal except her cousins point out that it’s wrong, she didn’t cut the fabric right, she couldn’t cook. It got old after a while at her doing things the wrong way. I know her mother was distant and didn’t teach her anything or seem to care about her, so she didn’t know how to do these things, but too much of the character not being able to do things does grate.

Lexi did have a lot of traits that were nice, so she was mostly likable. The way she stuck up for Jeb and helped him out, and the way she had solutions to most of the problems they encountered on their adventure to find an Indian tribe. She also read the Fellowship of the Ring, which was a cool detail because I’m a fan of Tolkien too. For the most part I agreed with her emotions, it was at times she would lose her patience with her cousins or try to needle them like they did her, or stick to her opinions on the trip that I didn’t like her as much. After a while it seemed like she knew everything, Jeb even said that she always knew the right things to say, that she was a tad annoying in that she really did seem to know what to do in every situation. She wasn’t like a 12 year old but like someone much older, especially when she came to the conclusion not to try to be like anyone else, that being different was okay. She was way more mature than I think any 12 year old is. Most girls her age don’t think this deeply or find so much comfort in being different and staying different, but I guess there’s a good lesson in here that normal is overrated and it’s good to be yourself.

Trueblood was really annoying and I could barely tolerate him. Lexi was more mature than he was, she actually said he was as much of a boy as Jeb was, which was weird. His evasiveness and going back and forth on whether there were Indians or not was aggravating and I just wanted a straight answer out of him. Lexi was right about the turtle hanging over his shop not being real. Trueblood made it himself and didn’t find it. She was also right about there not being Indians, there was no tribe which took a lot away from what the story could’ve been. They did discover they didn’t need the tribe and Jeb’s family really cared about him and had been worried, but it would’ve been cooler had there been a hidden tribe in the mountains. I wished there had been more information given about them and their history, but they were only mentioned a few times. Knowing the entire time that there weren’t Indians, because I’d read the ending, did prevent me from the excitement of waiting for the tribe and the disappointment I would’ve felt at there not being one. The way everyone spoke, this hickish way of speaking was not pleasant to read. Jeb and Trueblood said “wouldn’t of” and “shouldn’t of,” which is “would not of” and “should not of” which is not grammatically correct. I assumed the author had them speak that way because of their upbringing and everything, but other things I couldn’t get around, just the overall awkward and sluggish way they spoke. Jeb telling the story of the Indian boy being stuck in a log by his brothers and then taken care of by a bear. It was like “Well, so…” “Well….” “Well…” Literally 3 times he starts off with well. It was bad reading. And I didn't like this line: "Silently they positioned themselves, each on his own side of the raft with the paddle at the ready." That's talking about Lexi and Jeb, yet it's said "his side." It should be hers, or is being a male so superior that even girls are referenced as his? Also, some things were said about survival that I didn't think were true, like mosquitoes don't bite in the daytime, when they most definitely do.

[Cws]

JF-Adl

[Taylor Ren’e Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sweet story about looking for a place to belong and finding it within yourself.