This is a story about Indigenous People during the time of the French and Indian war. The setting is around the Great Lakes region as Babimose travels from place to place meeting new people and learning new things.
I loved this book.
The author introduced me to new words, new customs, new plants and new relationships. It was so interesting to see how you could live off the land in some places, while there were other places that made a business out of ferrying people around.
The tribes in the book were in many ways similar and yet so different. And it was a nice twist to show how one person can bring others together.
I would definitely read more from this author as well as more Indigenous People books.
Keep them coming!
Enjoy!

[2 stars]

Babimose is an expansion of the Ojibwe folktale of the child, Babimose, and his travels to the surrounding tribes of his home. Many of these tribes have strained or even outright war with his home culture that creates struggles with his travels. Ultimately, Babimose spends his travels learning about other cultures and nurturing his belief that all humans are equal and great, despite differences in language, culture, and attitudes

This story is interesting as an introduction into Native, specifically Ojibwe/Anishinaabe, folktales, but ultimately ends up being sort of nothing to me. The pacing is extremely slow and tensionless. Dialogue is stilted, probably done stylistically, and interrupts the story’s pace.

It’s hard to critique the book for this, though, as this rings very similar to the American folktales that I have always heard growing up - Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, and the rest. In this case, the story is equal in style to these, but on a slightly longer scale. It probably works much better read outloud and told bit by bit as a nighttime story, but trying to read long segments is a struggle due to the slow pacing and low conflict. Even at moments where stakes are supposed to be rising, the distant, storytelling narration hinders it's impact. Again, definitely a stylistic choice for a book that is not supposed to read like a standard narrative, but it was not something that I enjoyed reading.

Words, names, and phrases from Ojibwe are used throughout this story. Though it makes some parts slow to read, it really helps build atmosphere and sell the setting and scenes. It is also interesting to see the translations of the names into English, given in parenthesis at the person’s first introduction. One particular moment I thought was clever was when the name of a white man, “Cliff”, was said, it was pointed out that the “L” sound is unusual to Babimose as it is never used in the Ojibwe language.

Ultimately, Babimose could be a wonderful addition to the folktales of the region around the Great Lakes and offers a wonderful moral that everyone should try to understand and learn about others, but it makes for a very slow reading experience. In a different context, I may have enjoyed this more. Still, definitely pick it up if you are interested in the Indigenous groups of and/or enjoy reading about the different folktales of the area.