Point of View

The novel is written in first-person, and the majority of the action is seen from the limited perspective of a teenager named French. The basic story line is that French joins a group of Native Americans and they travel constantly north in the hope of avoiding the government that is systematically killing them. French is the voice of the group, and the reader sees the action of the main story line only from French's perspective. That means the reader knows only what French knows. For example, Wab and Chi-Boy become a couple but French does not realize it. There are some clues and the reader may guess that the two are together, but French does not until he learns that Wab is pregnant.

The exception to this limited perspective is seen in each “coming-to” chapter. There are several chapters that provide the back story for...