Kathleen Kaiser’s client, Chickasaw Press, had their young readers fiction coming-of-age book, Chula the Fox by Anthony Perry win first place for its category in the 2019 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards.
Chula, a Chickasaw boy, is suddenly thrown into the murky and treacherous worlds of warfare and adulthood after a traumatic ambush costs him his father. Left haunted by a restless spirit, Chula concludes, in line with the customs of his time, that only vengeance will make things right again. Chula the Fox is a middle grade historical novel, steeped in Chickasaw language and culture and set in the tribe’s Homeland, near present-day Mississippi. It tells an honest and often frank story about Chickasaw lives and the challenges our Native American ancestors faced during the early eighteenth century. Anthony Perry spent several years researching Chickasaw life before writing the book.