I love reading books. Usually I read books in the horror genre: Steven King, Dean Koontz, and the like. But when I was in the used book store a couple of weeks ago I saw a book with a herd of wild horses on the cover, The Story of Bue Eye. I bought the book assuming “Blue Eye” was going to be one of the horses!
Blue Eye is actually an 18 year old boy/man who is one half Canadian Indian and one half Philadelphia Quaker. He lives with his extended family on a horse farm and trading post in the foothills of Alberta in the mid 1800′s. The book tells of his story of growing from a boy to a man and finding his way in a much simpler although more violent time. Although this is a fictional “western” sort of story, and in no way a “motivational” or “self help” book, many of the ideals and philosophies of Blue Eye and the other early settlers and native people really made me sit back and say “hmmmmm” from time to time.
I liked the book because for the most part it told a happy story of success and self discovery. Most stories I read or watch these days always include something really bad happening. I just know that if something is going too well for my favourite character I just have to wait for a few minutes because a bus is going to race around the corner and run over that person’s child or something! There were certainly a few pages of sadness and hardship in this novel, but they were there for a purpose and there was always meaning behind the event.
A main theme of this book was the “life path” of the characters of the book. One was a warrior because that was her life path. But her brother was a horseman because that was his life path. Their parents didn’t condone the girl for killing all the white traders that entered their lands, but they understand that was “her path”. What could they do?
Another line I liked in the book was when two friends came together after many years apart. The one said to the other how young and vibrant he looked. The response to that was that “life is easy if you stay on your path”…. huh
I’m not very good at book reviews, but suffice it to say I liked this book enough to attempt to write this review for it. It had a great story that kept my interested. Horses were involved but were hardly the central point. And there were also some interesting lessons to be learned if you wanted to sit back and think for a minute or two.
The Story of Blue Eye by Tyler Trafford.
