Where the Broken Heart Still Beats

Where the Broken Heart Still Beats: The Story of Cynthia Ann Parker by Carolyn Meyer

This young adult book centers around the true story of Cynthia Ann Parker, who at 9 years old was kidnapped and raised by the Comanches from her white parents. As an adult, Cynthia Ann is returned to her blood family after the Comanches are raided by the Texas Rangers. This much is known. What happens in the intervening years and what happened afterward until Cythia Ann's death are up in the air. Not many historical records of her exist.


Carolyn Meyer has imagined a story of Cynthia Ann's return to her family, told in journal entries by a fictional cousin as well as in a narrative told from Cynthia Ann's point of view. The book deals with a struggle for identity--who we are, who we are raised to be, and other people's perceptions about us. Cynthia Ann came to see herselve as a Comanche. To her family, she was still a kidnapping victim of the savages. Their struggle to understand each other makes for compelling reading indeed.


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Interesting. GoodReads.com now makes you a pre-formatted blog entry so that you can cross post your reviews easily. I think I'll be making good use of this feature, even if I did have to tweak it some.