Soon to be a Major Motion Picture

National Book Award Finalist--Fiction

It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.

In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna's parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.

Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act "civilized." Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forging a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.

Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember--strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become--in the eyes of the law--a kidnapper himself. Exquisitely rendered and morally complex, News of the World is a brilliant work of historical fiction that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.

Author: Paulette Jiles
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Published: 10/04/2016
Pages: 224
Weight: 0.7lbs
Size: 7.40h x 5.50w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780062409201


Award: 2016 National Book Awards Finalist - Fiction


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 10/15/2015 pg. 60
Library Journal 12/01/2015 pg. 93
Kirkus Reviews 02/01/2016
Booklist 05/15/2016 pg. 28
Publishers Weekly 08/22/2016
BookPage 10/01/2016
School Library Journal 03/01/2017 pg. 153
Library Journal 10/15/2015

About the Author
Jiles, Paulette: -

Paulette Jiles is a novelist, poet, and memoirist. She is the author of Cousins, a memoir, and the novels Enemy Women, Stormy Weather, The Color of Lightning, Lighthouse Island, and News of the World, which was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award. She lives on a ranch near San Antonio, Texas.