ROYAL DIARIES: WEETAMOO

Sadly, the late Patricia Clark Smith contributed only one book to the Dear America family and that's this one. I really enjoyed the book based on the quality of the writing, but even moreso, the quality of the research.

Smith had Micmac roots and was very interested in Native American studies. You can tell these people truly meant something to her and she says that Weetamoo was one of her heroes. She did exhaustive research and when she didn't know something, she found someone who could help her. That is how you write a book properly, unlike other books we've already discussed, and that is how you write real people respectfully, unlike Ann Rinaldi. (We'll get to that eventually.)

Weetamoo is a bit different though, because she didn't know how to read and write. Her entries are presented in the form of her having thinking times and remembering. They're her private thoughts and memories, just as any diary would be, except they were never written down. It doesn't take away from the story at all, because it still reads like any other RD or DA book does, and I think Smith came up with a clever way of making this work for a character that wouldn't have kept a diary.

This book captures both the daily life of Weetamoo's Pocassets and other neighboring groups, but also covers interaction with and concerns about the "Coat-men" and how they might change Native American cultures.

I enjoyed reading this because I felt safe in Smith's hands, like she had done the people who populate this story justice and truly cared about their history.