About the Book
Ideal for mature middle grade readers to adult - anyone interested in Native American history. As the People settled into Indian Territory, having survived the forced march, the disease ridden supplies and stolen food, a new and insidious enemy threatened them - an enemy in a jug. A conspiracy between soldiers, shopkeepers and others introduced whiskey to the displaced men, incapacitating them and causing the decay of their burgeoning quality of life in the newly defined Territory. When Sasa and her friends investigate, their lives are threatened. Into this intrigue comes Coyote, half Lakota and half Blackfoot, forced to live on the fringe of society among his mother's people. Dishonored and distrusted, Coyote comes to the Territory to seek answers from other tribes, and from the Creator, to find his purpose in life. One purpose just might be to save Sasa's life. And what about Wheezer's new friend, a wild coyote Sasa calls Yellow Eyes? "Wheezer and the Painted Frog is at once joyous and heartbreaking. You will ache for the suffering, be outraged by the wrongs fascinated by the way of life, identify with Sasa and above all you will love Wheezer. You will look for his spirit in every dog you meet! Good luck and all best wishes Anne" Anne Perry, Author of Acceptable Loss
About the Author :
Kitty Sutton was born Kathleen Kelley to an Osage/Irish family. Both sides of her family were from performing families in Kansas City, Missouri and Kitty was trained from an early age in dance, vocal, art and musical instruments. Her father was a Naval band leader. During the Great Depression, her mother helped to support her family by tap dancing in the speakeasys even though she was just a child; she was very tall for her age but made up like an adult. Kitty had music and art on all sides of her family which ultimately helped to feed her imaginative mind and desire to succeed. Kitty married a wonderful Cherokee artist from Oklahoma, in fact the very area that she writes about in her Wheezer series of novels. After raising her family, Kitty came to Branson, Missouri and performed in her own one woman show there for twelve years. To honor her father, she performed under the name Kitty Kelley. She has three music albums and several original songs to her credit and is best known for her comical, feel good song called, It Ain't Over Till The Fat Lady Sings. Kitty has been writing for many years and in 2011 Inknbeans published her historical Native American murder mystery. First in a line of stories featuring Wheezer, a Jack Russell Terrier and his Cherokee friend, Sasa, it is called, Wheezer And The Painted Frog. Following that first book she came out with Wheezer and the Shy Coyote and has named her series, Mysteries From the Trail of Tears. Her third book, Wheezer and the Golden Serpent was released in 2013. Her fourth book, Wheezer and the Giveaway Child, is being released by the end of 2016. Kitty lives in the southwestern corner of Missouri near Branson with her husband of 46 years, one rescued cat and her three Jack Russell Terriers, one of which is the real and wonderful Wheezer.
Review :
Leigh Podgorski: "Greed is a sickness it is hard to get cured of," Lucius, one of the heroes of Kitty Sutton's most delightful and poignant Wheezer and the Shy Coyote quotes his mother in Chapter 13 as he comments on members of the U.S. Army who are running whiskey illegally to Cherokee Indians in the Indian Territory they have been displaced to after having been marched across the country with barely any provisions with not a thought to their well-being after their land had been stolen out from underneath them in yet another in the vast string of shameful broken treaties the young nation made with this land's native Peoples. Deftly, and with a surprisingly light touch and great amounts of wonderful humor, Miss Sutton weaves a wondrous tale of mystery and intrigue complete with a powerful young heroine, Sasa who communicates with two of literatures finest heroes, Wheezer, a Jack Russell terrier, and Yellow Eyes, the shy coyote of the title.
It is after the shameful forced march that has come to be known as the Trail of Tears, where Miss Sutton picks up the story of not only the Cherokee but some Choctaw and other Indian Peoples, too, illustrating how they are trying to adjust, trying to learn the "white man's ways," trying to adapt and to move forward into this new world into which they have been plunged. This is a complex story where not all the Indians are good and all the white people are bad, but where humans are humans and act out along the vast spectrum of complex human behavior, which makes this story achingly real and heart-breaking.
A murder occurs and character is revealed along the way of discovering not only who committed the murder but why and also the much greater scope of selling whiskey to the Indians - a substance that acts like poison to them. In an addendum to the novel, Miss Sutton presents a very brief but poignant essay outlining how alcoholism and substance abuse has devastated Indian nations.
Which is why her writing and this book is so magical: The story contains not a whiff of self-pity. Instead it paints a vast and gorgeous scope of Cherokee life. And we need to know this. As a nation, we need to know, we need to recognize, we need to acknowledge what we did. There are bodies buried here. There was a Holocaust committed here. A genocide, right here, in this great and beautiful nation that has stained its brave and beautiful soul.
And still, there is Wheezer--who will steal your heart, and Sasa who will amaze you and Coyote and Yellow Eyes for whom you will cheer and Anna and Jackson who will give you hope that there are good people everywhere in every color and "if we are to survive we must stop the fighting..."
Wheezer and the Coyote will immerse you in that time and place of 1839. Miss Sutton gets everything right. She simply channels it--from the voice of Cherokee elder Poison Woman to Irish National escapee Lucius to Jack Russell Wheezer, from her description of a fine western room to an army outpost that gets you wondering how did she do this. The book is a remarkable, moving adventure with a story that needs to be told that Miss Sutton tells without judgment but with great passion and deep knowledge. Embark upon this journey. I cannot wait to read her next one.
