3 out of 4 stars
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Strong Heart written by Charlie Sheldon and narrated by Laurel Ann White is a fascinating story of adventure, mystery and drama.
It starts as a slow-paced story and gradually turns into a mixture of adventure and ancient Native American history. The book opens up with a dramatic scene, thunderstorms and heavy winds which give an eerie feeling, indicating something is coming!
Tom is planning to leave for a morning trek into the wilderness with his Native American friends William and Myra. This trip is crucial to Tom as they are headed to the burial-place of his grandfather, and he wants to make sure that it is well cared for. This shows that Tom is a person who respects family values and has straight priorities.
Just as they are about to leave, Tom's ex-wife shows up with a surprise: a girl named Sarah, and tells him that she is his granddaughter whom he didn't know about. This new piece of information takes Tom by surprise and he wishes to call off the trip, but William and Myra persuade him to take Sarah with them.
During the hike, Sarah causes Tom much trouble, which includes mocking him from time to time, and then running off with an artifact just as they get close to the grave site. Tom handles all of this in a calm way and sets out to find her, but returns without any luck.
8 days later she reappears, and tells the horrifying story of what happened to her in the past few days, which Tom and his friends find impossible to believe.
To me the character of Sarah is of a brat, unruly and ill-mannered at first, but as she spends time with her grandfather, she gives him a chance to open up to her, and allows the same for him. About Tom’s ex-wife, I don’t find her character appealing and kind as she just wants to get rid of Sarah somehow.
The scenes described in the book are quite vivid and easy to visualize. The audio book is also a marvelous job, at some places it becomes monotonous but overall it is good. Someone going on a long trip might enjoy the audio book.
No doubt Strong Heart is a marvelous story, but it also emphasizes on the cultural and the geophysical importance of the Pacific Northwest. Though, I do find lack of character development which could be improved by giving us some background info about the main characters. The book must be read by extroverts and teens. I give it 3 out of 4 stars, could have been 4 out of 4 if the characters were strongly built.
There are little or no grammatical mistakes indicating sufficient proofreading and well-edited text.
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Strong Heart
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