Quick Take
- Narration: Joseph Bruchac reads his own book, which is written throughout in Jim Thorpe's first-person voice.
- Themes: Native American boarding schools, athletic greatness, glory and disgrace, reconstructed testimony
- Mood: Plain-spoken, dignified, quietly angry
- Verdict: A short, serious young-adult biography whose self-narration is the whole point, with one reviewer's redundancy warning worth heeding.
Jim Thorpe tells his own story here, and that single decision is why this audiobook works as well as it does. Joseph Bruchac wrote the book in the first person, in Thorpe's voice, and then read it himself. The recording runs six hours and twenty-six minutes, was published by Listening Library, and dates from November 2007. It is filed for teen listeners, which undersells who actually turns up for it.
The method behind the voice matters, and one reviewer sets it out carefully. David Cary's notice records that "The book was written in the first person and the author makes it clear that everything in the book has been substantiated as actually happening", and that the author "looked up old letters and interviewed people to find the actual words Thorpe said". So the person speaking in this recording is the person who went and found the speech. That is a closed loop no hired reader could complete, and it is the strongest argument for this particular production.
What Joseph Bruchac Delivers
The life is extraordinary and the book knows better than to oversell it. Born on the Sac and Fox Reservation in 1887, Thorpe was sent as a boy to a succession of Indian boarding schools, described in the copy as "strict, cold places" that forbade students their own traditions, and he ran away repeatedly. At Pennsylvania's Carlisle School he met the coach Pop Warner, whom the copy calls "as famous today as Thorpe himself", and the athletic career began. What follows is summarized in a single line on the product page: "Glory followed, as did surprising disgrace."
That reticence is deliberate, and I think it is also where the first-person choice earns its keep. A third-person biography would have to characterize the disgrace, weigh it and pass judgment. A voice speaking as Thorpe can only report it from inside, which is both more restrained and more affecting for a young reader. One reviewer describes reaching "the Olympic Medal scandal" and finding the aftermath handled as summary rather than spectacle, and the description's own comparison, that his community considers him "a hero on par with Crazy Horse", is left to stand without argument.
One credit, two people: the author reads his own impersonation of his subject. That produces something an ordinary audiobook cannot, and one reviewer names the effect precisely, writing that "The author tells the story in Thorpe's voice, and you believe it is him speaking to you." Taken as evidence about the text rather than the reading, it still tells you what the recording is trading on. A performer hired to voice a reconstructed first-person account is doing an impression of an impression. Bruchac is doing the only version of it that has an author's authority behind it.
Its readership runs well past the shelf label, and the pool proves it. One notice comes from a grandparent relaying reactions from a grandson and his mother, and adds that the daughter "picks it up after her son falls asleep to polish off another chapter", quoting her verdict as "Very well written". Another reviewer used the book for a book club and called the experience awesome. A third heard the name as a child and came back for the full story years later. Teen classification here is about reading level, not about who benefits.
History is the last draw, and it is not softened. One notice praises the book as "packed with credible history of growing-up-Oklahoma in Indian Country" and does not flinch from the boarding school material. Another, a four-star response, says it gained "a lot of knowledge and empathy for all that Native Americans went through" in the world of sports, and recommends it as "essential reading for sports fans and anyone interested in the historical role of Native Americans". This is a sports biography that refuses to be only that. Sport and history are not kept apart either; the running away, the schools and the coaching are one continuous story about who was allowed to decide what a boy would become.
Where Joseph Bruchac Loses Some Ground
The one criticism in the pool is worth taking seriously, because it is a structural risk in audio specifically. A four-star reviewer finds the book "a little redundant at times". Repetition that a reader skims past becomes something a listener has to sit through, and a first-person account that circles back to the same themes of running away, of being told what to be, of winning and losing standing, will feel that more sharply by ear. If you notice it in the first hour it will not stop. Set against that, four of the five notices give five stars and the dissenting one still gives four, so nobody on this page considers the repetition disqualifying.
Two smaller things. The first-person device needs stating to a young listener before they begin, since a recording narrated by the author in his subject's voice can easily be mistaken for autobiography rather than a researched reconstruction; the reviewer who calls it substantiated is doing the buyer a service. And the product description itself is untidy, with words broken mid-spelling and sentences run together, which says nothing about the book but does mean the page is a poor guide to the writing inside it.
Who Joseph Bruchac Is Writing For
Young sports listeners are the intended audience and they are well served, particularly readers who know football and have never heard of Carlisle. Classrooms and family listening are the natural settings, and the pool shows both, from a book club to a household where a parent and a child read it in turn. Adults with an interest in the history of Native American education will find the boarding school material handled squarely rather than sensationally. Anyone assembling a list of athletes worth knowing should start close to here, since the description's claim that Thorpe was one of the greatest who ever lived is supported by a career that ran across professional football, major league baseball and Olympic track and field.
Wanting a full, documented sports biography with statistics and career detail is the one expectation this cannot meet; it is compressed and shaped for a younger reader, running well under seven hours. And anyone allergic to repetition should heed the four-star notice. Everyone else is being offered something unusual: a life reconstructed from letters and interviews, spoken in the first person by the writer who did the reconstructing, on a recording that has held a 4.6 average across 168 ratings and fourteen years of written responses.
Common Questions
Is this audiobook narrated by Jim Thorpe himself?
No. Bruchac wrote it as if Thorpe were speaking, in the first person, and then read it aloud himself. One reviewer notes that the author gathered old letters and interviews to recover the actual words Thorpe used, so the account is reconstruction rather than autobiography.
How long is the Jim Thorpe, Original All-American audiobook?
A shade under six and a half hours, dating from November 2007. That is compact for a full life, and it reflects a book shaped for younger readers. Expect the athletic career and the boarding school years in detail, and the later years handled as summary.
Is it suitable for a classroom or a family listen?
Yes on the evidence of this page, which includes a book club and one household where a mother and her son both read it, reported by a grandparent. The boarding school material is unflinching but not graphic, and the four-star notice praises the empathy it built.
What is the main criticism?
Repetition. The one dissenting reviewer finds the retelling repetitive in places, and that costs more in audio than in print, since a listener cannot skim. The recurring themes of running away and of proving himself do circle back across the recording.
