Mollyockett

I used this novel with my high school English class last fall. I teach in an urban environment where kids are reluctant to read, period. But I found that the students were REALLY into it. I had students who I suspect never read, reading it and telling me so. They kept saying, all year, "can't we read another novel like Mollyockett?". It is told in flashback by the title character, Mollyockett, a medicine woman/weaver/wanderer, the last of her nation, the Peqwackets. She tells the story to a young English settler, Sarah. As she loses strength, Sarah tends to her and listens to her stories. For the most part, she tells the story chronologically... and she has an interesting life. Pat Stewart weaves the stories together seemlessly so that nothing seems forced or strange. If anything, she makes the reader want to know more about the real story. We were lucky to be able to host the author at our school and she captivated the kids. Mostly, they wanted to know about Native American Medicine practices, since they were studying that as part of their unit, but many wanted to know how she actually wrote the story; she told them about the process of researching the history and making up parts she didn't know about. I still think some of the students had a hard time realizing that the story was based on the life of a real person! It is rare to find historical, fictionalized accounts of Native Americans, and even rarer to find ones about Abenaki or any other New England Native American groups. Anyway, I highly recommend this novel to teachers to use in their classrooms, but also to anyone who likes historical "fiction"... uhm, fictionalized history?

Basically, when we read fiction (or as in this case, fictionalized history), we want a story...the kind of story that in early times would have kept us listening to the storyteller until the tale was completely told. Pat Stewart's device, letting Mollyockett, the last of the Pequawkets, tell the story of her long life in the white man's world is just this kind of tale. It is clear that the author has carefully researched the life and times of her real-life character and that Mollyockett's story is based in fact. However, by taking some poetic license Stewart has been able to breathe life into Mollyockett, going beyond the facts and fleshing out the personal qualities and skills of this unusual woman. The result is a series of well-told tales that are revealing of both the storyteller's life and character, informative of the Native American history of New England, and revealing of the ambiguity of the French and Indian Wars. Avoiding the pitfalls of using any vernacular, Stewart has Mollyockett speak clear, almost poetic language. A storyteller herself, Stewart has faithfully produced a character that spins her own stories with a compelling, yet gentle voice that absorbs the reader. I recommend this book to readers of all ages who like good stories about real people and events that really happened.

In just 163 pages, Pat Stewart tells the story of Mollyockett, an Abenaki Indian woman who lived most of her life in the hilly country of western Maine. (Or, rather, bedridden in her final days and hours, Mollyocket tells her own story to a ficticious young gift descended from one of Andover, Maine's, first settlers).What a remarkable story she tells--a tale of the struggle between native people and settlers, a story of this strong woman's own deep apirituality and faith.Even the book design is distinctive, modeled after a purse which Mollyockett wove and which now belongs to the Maine Historical Society.I recommend this slim, creative and engaging book as a fine way to meet one of our country's native ancestors.