Genre: Fiction
Culture: Native American
Book: Bruchac, Joseph. (2001).
Skeleton Man. New York:
HarperCollins.
Synopsis: Molly’s parents
disappear one night and a man claiming to be her great-uncle shows up to take
custody of her. He is tall, elderly,
thin, and dressed in all gray, and reminds her of the skeleton man in the story
her parents told her as a child. Molly’s
father grew up on a Mohawk Reserve, and told her many Mohawk stories, including
The Skeleton Man, about an uncle who tried to eat his whole family (in the
story, a rabbit saves the niece from being eaten, and shows her how to bring
her family back to life). Molly never
believes her parents are gone forever, because she relies on her dreams to
reveal important events to her, and she hasn’t had a dream that her parents are
not coming back. Molly, whose attempts
fail to convince the social workers that she doesn’t have an uncle, goes to
live with this “uncle” and becomes more and more uncomfortable in his
house. For instance, after she eats the
dinner he gives her the first night, she doesn’t feel well, and passes out in
her bed. From then on, she begins hiding
the meals he leaves for her and later dumping them in a drainage ditch. Additionally, there are bars on her bedroom
window, and each night she hears her uncle creep up the stairs and lock her
bedroom door with a key from the outside.
When she finally confesses this to her teacher at school, and the
guidance counselor becomes involved, they call her uncle and tell him they are
coming to speak with him about it. When
they all arrive at the house, the uncle shows them upstairs and they see that
the bedroom door is only lockable from the inside of the room—Molly’s side. As soon as they leave, the uncle tells Molly
that her dinner is on the table, and as she sits down, she hears him upstairs
at her bedroom door and hears an electric screwdriver as he begins to reverse
the lock back to the way it was originally.
The creepy uncle spends all of his time in his tool shed in the
backyard, and he never eats with Molly.
As a matter of fact, he hasn’t really let Molly see his face since she
came to live with him, preferring to stay in the shadows of the house. When he has had to meet with other people,
he’s seemed to change, or take on a more normal appearance. After Molly discovers something appalling in
his study, and then something even more shocking in his tool shed, the action
rises to a confrontational climax in the dark woods.
Comparisons/contrasts with traditional American/Western culture: Locke (p.65), states, “[Native American
Indians] pass on traditions and customs through oral myths and legends. They live in the present, rather than in the
past or future.” This was true in the
book, as Molly’s parents passed on myths and legends orally through the bedtime
stories they told her. Throughout the
book, Molly also never dwelled on the past or the future. She was wholly secure in the abilities of her
dreams to reveal to her what she needed to know, and she was courageous in
acting on them. She was steadfast and
brave in surviving the present in her “uncle’s” house. Locke writes (p.67), “Prejudice is also
frequently encountered in the educational system…studies have shown the
discouraging trend that prejudice toward Native American Indians is staying the
same or even increasing (Beuf, 1977).”
This was evident in the book in the way adults treated and reacted to
Molly. The school guidance counselor,
the social worker, and all adults except her classroom teacher, treated Molly
with disregard and impatience, using “the tone that certain grown-ups use with
children and idiots—who are the same in their minds” (Bruchac 14). Lastly, Locke writes of Native American
Indians: “they worship the forces of nature, such as the sun, wind, water,
fire, thunder, and lightning, as well as animals” (Locke 70). Rabbits, nature, and the spirit all play a
large role in the plot of this book.
Response: The Skeleton Man
was an enjoyable, fast page-turner. From
the first page, it grabs the readers and makes them want to know what Molly’s
situation was, and what she was going to do to get out of it. I wanted to find out what had happened to her
parents, who the Skeleton Man was, and what he wanted. Bruchac painted a believable story while
maintaining accurate cultural values, and weaving Native American Indian myth
into a modern plot and setting.
