Encounter

Encounter

by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, 2008, New York: Hyperion Books for Children. (01152259627)

Author website: http://janeyolen.com/
 
Illustrator website: no author website
 
Media: acrylic

Annotation: A Taino boy dreams of scary sharp-toothed birds arriving on ships.  The next day, the first Europeans arrive on American shores.  The boy warns his people not to trust the pale visitors, but no one listens.

Personal Reaction:
     The story told from the perspective of the indigenous people of the Americas puts a different spin on the classic tale of New World discovery.  The whites are described by the Taino Indians as non-humans who cover themselves in colored cloths like parrots and cover their feet and don't act like people from this world.  While the Taino give the explorers important tools like spears to hunt and fish with, tools of self sufficiency to survive, the whites give the Indians musical bells and beads, and hats, that are of trivial use.  There is an overall feeling of pessimism and doom in the story that is unsettling.  I wish Yolen would have showed what life was like before the Spanish arrived.  Instead we begin with a dark premonition and are left only to anticipate a tragic ending.  Shannon's paintings are beautiful but seem sparse in contrast to all that is going on in the text.  On a positive note, Encounter can be used as a great starting point for a discussion on different perspectives on the founding of the New World. Students will be engaged and given different perspectives on these important events and may us the book to develop their own opinions on this historic event.


Curricular Connection:
The land and people before Columbus; The age of exploration; 1492 c.e. / Social Science, Grade 5: In the study of the early explorers, students trace and learn the routes of the major land explorers of the United States, the distances traveled, and the Atlantic trade routes that linked Africa, the West Indies, the British colonies, and Europe.