CROSSING BOK CHITTO

A. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Tingle, Tim. 2006. CROSSING BOK CHITTO: A CHOCTAW TALE OF FRIENDSHIP & FREEDOM. Ill. by Jeanne Rorex Bridges. El Paso. Cinco Puntos Press. ISBN 9780938317777

B. PLOT SUMMARY
After crossing Bok Chitto, a river, without permission Martha Tom, a Choctaw, stumbles upon a forbidden slave church. She and Little Mo, a slave, become friends. When Little Mo’s mother is sold, Martha Tom and the village women help his family escape across the river. The law states that once a slave was across Bok Chitto he is free and the slave owner could not follow.

C. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Storyteller Tim Tingle, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, has created a story about faith and freedom that joins the Choctaws and slaves in triumphing over slave owners. The main characters, Martha Tom and Little Mo both are respectful of their parents while still conveying the spirit of children of all cultures and time. Martha Tom meets Little Mo when she crosses the river without permission. Following his father’s directions Little Mo is able to return Martha Tom to her family. Martha Tom thinks his directions of, “Move not too fast, not too slow, eyes to the ground, away you go,” are like a game. When she returns with Little Mo her mom is upset, but Martha Tom knows she is loved. Tingle engineers the slave escape to use the stepping stones that Martha Tom’s tribe use to cross the river and that have enabled the two children to become friends.
Jeanne Rorex Bridges, of Cherokee Indian descent, illustrates this story with pictures that enhance story by providing straightforward representations of the text. Throughout the story these pictures intensify the emotions revealed in the text. Her illustrations convey the strength and dignity of the women. Many of the pictures are situated to make the people to appear to be looking directly at the reader.
Many cultural markers are used to identify the Native American culture in this story. On the first page of text, the Choctaw Indians are identified. The wedding song is being sung by the old men when Little Mo returns Martha Tom to the village. Later in the book, during Little Mo’s family escape Martha Tom sings in Choctaw. Tingle states the story is documented, “the Indian way, told and retold and then passed on by uncles and grandmothers.” This is on the last page of the book, the preceding page states that this story was born during a visit with Archie Mingo, a tribal elder, of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.
The illustrator, Bridges portrays the characters as individuals with varying skin color and facial features.

D. REVIEW EXCERPTS
Booklist starred (April 15, 2006 (Vol. 102, No. 16))
Gr. 2-4. In a picture book that highlights rarely discussed intersections between Native Americans in the South and African Americans in bondage, a noted Choctaw storyteller and Cherokee artist join forces with stirring results. Set "in the days before the War Between the States, in the days before the Trail of Tears," and told in the lulling rhythms of oral history, the tale opens with a Mississippi Choctaw girl who strays across the Bok Chitto River into the world of Southern plantations, where she befriends a slave boy and his family. When trouble comes, the desperate runaways flee to freedom, helped by their own fierce desire (which renders them invisible to their pursuers) and by the Choctaws' secret route across the river. In her first paintings for a picture book, Bridges conveys the humanity and resilience of both peoples in forceful acrylics, frequently centering on dignified figures standing erect before moody landscapes. Sophisticated endnotes about Choctaw history and storytelling traditions don't clarify whether Tingle's tale is original or retold, but this oversight won't affect the story's powerful impact on young readers, especially when presented alongside existing slave-escape fantasies such as Virginia Hamiltons's The People Could Fly0 (2004) and Julius Lester's The Old African 0 (2005).

Library Media Connection (November/December 2006)
Tingle, a superb storyteller, tells a tale of friendship and freedom about the great river, Bok Chitto, that divides two very different worlds prior to the American Civil War. One Sunday morning in preparation for a Choctaw tribal wedding Martha Tom searches for blackberries. Against her mother's instructions, she crosses the deep, brown water on stepping-stones and enters the woods where black slave families gather for worship and celebration. She becomes disoriented and Little Mo, a young slave, guides her through the woods to the banks of Bok Chitto. Together they cross the river to visit the Native American families. This friendship grows until Little Mo's mother is scheduled to be sold. Late that night Martha Tom's community of women lead Little Mo's family across the river's invisible path and down the road to freedom. Through the poetic cadence of oral storytelling and a quiet, yet penetrating voice, Tingle brings this early American tale to print as a strong read- aloud for young or middle level students or for a great quick read for older readers. The language is vividly brought to life through rich earthen-toned illustrations by Jeanne Rorex Bridges. Recommended. Donna Steffan, Director of Library Media, Beaver Dam (Wisconsin) Unified School District

Publishers Weekly (March 13, 2006)
Bridges, a Cherokee artist making her children's book debut, joins Tingle (Walking the Choctaw Road) in a moving and wholly original story about the intersection of cultures. The river Bok Chitto divides the Choctaw nation from the plantations of Mississippi. "If a slave escaped and made his way across Bok Chitto, the slave was free," writes Tingle, "The slave owner could not follow. That was the law." But Bok Chitto holds a secret: a rock pathway that lies just below the surface of the water. "Only the Choctaws knew it was there, for the Choctaws had built it," Tingle explains. When a slave boy and his family are befriended by a Choctaw girl, the pathway becomes part of an ingenious plan that enables the slaves to cross the river to freedom-in plain view of a band of slave hunters during a full moon. Bridges creates mural-like paintings with a rock-solid spirituality and stripped-down graphic sensibility, the ideal match for the down-to-earth cadences and poetic drama of the text. Many of the illustrations serve essentially as portraits, and they're utterly mesmerizing-strong, solid figures gaze squarely out of the frame, beseeching readers to listen, empathize and wonder. Ages 5-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.


E. CONNECTIONS
Young students can write about how they might help a friend in need. Could they put themselves in danger to help a friend?