Two Roads

Product Description

A boy discovers his Native American heritage in this Depression-era tale of identity and friendship by the author of Code Talker

It’s 1932, and twelve-year-old Cal Black and his Pop have been riding the rails for years after losing their farm in the Great Depression. Cal likes being a “knight of the road” with Pop, even if they’re broke. But then Pop has to go to Washington, DC–some of his fellow veterans are marching for their government checks, and Pop wants to make sure he gets his due–and Cal can’t go with him. So Pop tells Cal something he never knew before: Pop is actually a Creek Indian, which means Cal is too. And Pop has decided to send Cal to a government boarding school for Native Americans in Oklahoma called the Challagi School.

At school, the other Creek boys quickly take Cal under their wings. Even in the harsh, miserable conditions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school, he begins to learn about his people’s history and heritage. He learns their language and customs. And most of all, he learns how to find strength in a group of friends who have nothing beyond each other.

Review

Praise for Two Roads

“Cal’s cleareyed first-person narration drives the novel. Meticulously honest, generous, autonomous and true, he sees things for what they are rather than what he’d like them to be. The result is one of Bruchac’s best books.” —
New York Times Book Review* “A tautly paced and compelling story of self-discovery, family, belonging, and friendship.” —
Horn Book, starred review

“Multiple compelling Depression-era histories converge in Bruchac’s latest . . . The students’ utter subversion of Challagi’s mission to sever their ties with Indian culture soon becomes apparent, as does Cal’s powerful, growing understanding of his identity.” —
Booklist

About the Author

Joseph Bruchac is a highly acclaimed children’s book author, poet, novelist, and storyteller, as well as a scholar of Native American culture. He is the coauthor of the bestselling Keepers of the Earth series with Michael Caduto. Bruchac’s poems, articles, and stories have appeared in hundreds of publications from
Akwesasne Notes and
American Poetry Review to
National Geographic and
Parabola. He has authored many books for adults and children including
Code Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two,
Skeleton Man, and
The Heart of a Chief.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One
Keeping Up
The red road stretches out before us, a long ribbon of light.
“Keep up, Cal.”
I am the right size for my age, which is twelve—this being 1932 in the year of Our Lord. I can run as fast as the Dickens. But when it comes to marching I always fall behind. Despite Pop’s limp, he always gets a few steps ahead of me.
I cannot help but sigh.
Pop doesn’t hear that. Though he can still catch the songs of the birds in the trees above us—like the redbird he pointed out a mile back—real low noises escape his ears. It has been that way since the sixth of June in ’18 when he was partially deafened by the booming of the big guns.
We keep marching along. I’m doing a better job now of keeping up. I don’t mind walking like this, mile after mile, just as long as it doesn’t start my father remembering.
Pop looks up at the sun. “It was hot like this that day. It was about this time,” he says. “Exactly three forty-five p.m.” There’s a faraway look on his face now. He’s telling the story to himself, almost unaware of me listening.
“‘Over the top and take that wood,’ General Hartford orders us. And then the whistle blares. So over the top we go. Every one of us as green as grass.”
It’s the place where Pop always pauses. Sometimes we’ll walk as much as a mile before he says more.
“And then the Devil’s Paintbrushes opened up and down we went, like a wheat field being mowed.”
Another silence as another mile passes.
“No,” he says. “Not like wheat nor rye. Mown grass does not bleed or make the ground so slippery you c