Rathuun: King of the Prairie

 

Rathuun: King of the Prairie: A Western Frontier Adventure by David Fitz-Gerald
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While buffalo don’t roam the western plains of the United States as they used to, this is still a story that while surprising me, also kept me reading.

Since it was labeled as western fiction, I thought I was probably going to be reading a story of cowboys and not of buffaloes. Especially not a story where the POV is told by a young buffalo named Rathuun. And yet, it worked.

There is a magical sense to this book, and being a very black and white person, at first I had a little trouble with some of the walking, talking buffalo life. But somehow Fitz-Gerald made you forget that Rathuun was a buffalo, at least sometimes. He made this seem like the story of a family, which I suppose it was, and writes of their existence in a tough world, roaming seasonally, living through stampedes, and surviving attacks from predators. He made this particular young buffalo a good storyteller and built plenty emotion into his story. So much so that you will feel emotional. About a buffalo, can you imagine? But, believe me, there is that much strength to this story.

This is not a story for all ages. There is violence, at least too much for young children in my opinion. It is also quite long and could not keep a child’s interest for that long. But it is a story you will not be able to stop reading and one you won’t ever regret that you took the time to do so.


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