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Home School Book Review
, February 12, 2022
(view all comments by Home School Book Review)
It is 1809, and teenager Ezekiel (E.Z.) Perkins, his widowed mother Sarah, and little brother David have left their old home in Pennsylvania and been traveling the Natchez Trace, tha mysterious, frontier road known as “The Devil’s Backbone,” in search of a new home. Sarah is injured in an accident at Colbert’s Ferry and asks their strange traveling companion, Mr. Burton, to be a good father to her sons if anything should happen to her. Sarah does in fact die, but E.Z. doesn’t trust Burton, so the boys run away to Underwood’s Village where a friendly Chickasaw warrior named Tashka offers them a home. However, when a party of enemy Creek warriors attack, Tashka is killed, and E.Z. and David are captured.
What will happen to the boys? Does Mr. Burton ever find them? And if they escape from the Creeks, can they avoid the bandits who have been following them? In Book 2 of the “Fighting Devil’s Backbone” series, as E. Z. struggles to survive, he must learn the skills of an Indian hunter and warrior to save his own life and the lives of his brother David and his best friend Isaiah. E. Z. and the Chikasha Warrior contains excellent historic details that would be good reading for older kids learning Tennessee history, along with exciting plot twists that keep the reader turning the pages. The story in this well-written and well-paced second book slows down and gets more into characterization of the main individuals. I enjoyed it and look forward to book 3.
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