The systematic annihilation of indigenous cultures is possibly the worst crime all of humanity has to answer for. This story not only highlights the real-world side of cultural assimilation (right from the beginning, with the title nodding at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and the Dawes Act), but also seamlessly blends in the magical side of things. What happens when a young girl is taken from her tribe and forced to learn the ways of the white man? We know that story. But then what happens when a wizard shows up and says she'll be going to a white wizard school? It's more of the same, it's not liberation or freedom or anything like that, no matter how appealing it is as an alternative to the school we first see Annie in. Connor doesn't get it, and Corina doesn't really understand either: the way the Native Americans had things was working out pretty fine for them, and it wasn't the white man's place to force them out of it, no matter how good their intentions might have been.

Good story. Excellent application of real-life issues to the magical world. Interesting characters, too, in that we're sympathetic to a little girl who isn't especially nice, not too upset about the death of an essentially good man, and told these things from the perspective of a young girl who has trouble seeing outside the narrow scope of her culture. I liked this, thumbs up.