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Reviewed by Heather Osborne for Readers' Favorite
The Giggling Boy by Ra Lynn LoneWalker chronicles one of the most horrific times in US history. Native American children were ripped from the bosoms of their families to be “educated” in mission schools. What awaited them was not standard education, but the experience of harsh and abusive school superintendents and teachers, whose only desire was to strip away their native culture. LoneWalker presents two viewpoints of this horror. One is from the perspective of Weshaw, aka Smiley, stolen along with his sister from their reservation to be educated in the Genoa Mission School. He tells of the traumatic abuse he suffered at the hands of the school superintendent, Francis Malachi Pratt. Pratt provides the other perspective, but his is much darker, showing a hellish environment where he is meant to reflect on and repent of his horrible actions.
This is certainly one of the more unique historical novels I have read. I know through the introduction that the story of Weshaw is based on fact. I was aware of the mission schools, but not of the atrocities committed there. I admire LoneWalker for the research done prior to writing this narrative. There is a clear warning at the beginning that the content is explicit. Mr. Pratt was a pedophile, and horribly abused Weshaw. However, the narrative involving Pratt was something certainly different. He experienced a sort of hell, being made to experience all the things he did to the boys at the school. In a way, this portion of the book must have been cathartic for LoneWalker to write, in his own way seeking retribution for all the wrongs done to these children. Definitely not gentle reading, The Giggling Boy by Ra Lynn LoneWalker makes the reader truly reflect on what was done to so many people within the borders of the United States after the Civil War.
