Donner Dinner Party

This looked good: the history of a pioneer family's treacherous trip across America. Since my kids are studying the pioneers, I thought it might be an interesting addition to their education. 

Before reading this graphic novel by Nathan Hale, I didn't realize that the story of the Donner family is well known as "one of the most spectacular tragedies in Californian history and in the record of western migration." (Quote is from McGlashan, p. 16; Stewart, p. 271. via wikkipedia.) Well, I didn't know the story and I sure didn't realize that the "dinner party" mentioned in the title was a grotesque reference to the repeated use of cannibalism for survival. Near the end of the trip, some of the travelers allegedly even killed other members of the party who seemed close to death, in order to eat them sooner. In the graphic novel format, the actual eating of human flesh is not shown but it is the main subject of the story, and the fact is made trivial several times, while characters in the story spend more time mourning over the loss of pets and ponies.

Glaringly absent from this account of desperate cannibalism were the feelings of anyone in the party. This is a disappointment in most graphic novel versions of classic literary works and I think there is no easy solution, with the exception of the (fictional) Tales of Thelonius which intersperses text in order to describe the feelings of the characters.

In Donner Dinner Party, Nathan Hale does very well in portraying the sunken and desperate expressions on the faces of the starving group members. The clothing and landscape drawings seem very well-researched. However, if the characters had any religious sentiment at all, any struggles with conscience, you would not know from this account. It is my understanding that the pioneers in the United States had deep faith in a Christian God, but that information is completely absent from Mr Hale's story.

It has been suggested that comic history books can lure in reluctant learners but do you really think they are learning a lot here? This book could be a reward after finishing a high school research paper, perhaps. I ended up returning this book to the library without letting my kids read it. Not yet, not this one. Perhaps in five years or so.


http://www.amazon.com/Nathan-Hales-Hazardous-Tales-Donner/dp/1419708562