Told in the words of Isaac, a Choctaw boy who does not survive the Trail of Tears, HOW I BECAME A GHOST is a tale of innocence and resilience in the face of tragedy. From the book's opening line, "Maybe you have never read a book written by a ghost before," the reader is put on notice that this is no normal book. Isaac leads a remarkable foursome of Choctaw comrades: a tough-minded teenage girl, a shape-shifting panther boy, a lovable five-year-old ghost who only wants her mom and dad to be happy, and Isaac s talking dog, Jumper. The first in a trilogy, HOW I BECAME A GHOST thinly disguises an important and oft-overlooked piece of history.

As Book 2 in Tim Tingle's award-winning How I Became A Ghost Series begins, his family continues the long walk to Indian Territory, and ten-year-old Isaac, our narrator and now a ghost, meets the famed Choctaw Chief and U.S. Army General Pushmataha. There have been surprises aplenty on the Trail thus far, but this one tops them all or so he thinks, until Isaac and his three Choctaw comrades learn they can now also time travel. With Pushmataha as their guide, Isaac and friends head back in time to the Washington,D.C., of 1824 to bear witness for the Choctaw chief who has come to the nation s capital at the invitation of his dear friend Andrew Jackson. You cannot blame the people before you for mistakes their ancestors made, Chief Pushmataha tells the little band, making a powerful and timeless lesson one made more so as the reader travels from graveyards to boarding schools, from 1824 to 2018, experiencing firsthand the joy of never leaving.