---
product_id: 180243903
title: "News of the World"
price: "€ 26.51"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.nl/products/180243903-news-of-the-world
store_origin: NL
region: Netherlands
---

# News of the World

**Price:** € 26.51
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** News of the World
- **How much does it cost?** € 26.51 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.nl](https://www.desertcart.nl/products/180243903-news-of-the-world)

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## Description

News of the World [Paulette Jiles, Grover Gardner] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. News of the World

Review: READ THIS BOOK! - This is a departure from my usual reading fare both in terms of content and setting. I am so happy that I tried something different. The story is very interesting and evocative and the writing strikes just the right balance of descriptive and sparse. I had one initial quibble with the writing, but I soon got over it. The author elects to not use quotation marks. At first, I could not figure out who was speaking or if I was even reading dialogue at all. It is the mark of a great story teller that after a couple of chapters I was not aware of the missing quotation marks. I fell into the rhythm and the story and followed along just fine. News of the World takes place in post-civil war Texas beginning in 1870. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, veteran of two wars, is in his early 70's and is a widow. He travels around Texas reading the news from various papers. He is offered a $50 gold piece to return a 10 year old girl to her aunt and uncle in San Antonio. Four years prior, some Kiowa Indians killed her family, kidnapped her, and raised her as their own. Johanna is of German heritage but does not initially remember any German or English. She knows only her Kiowa family and their ways. Captain Kidd needs the money and reluctantly agrees to help. The story follows their harrowing journey from Wichita Falls to San Antonio. They deal with various threats, including some men who want to buy Johanna and make her a prostitute. The Captain also tries to teach her English and more civilized ways so that she will fit in when she returns home. In addition, he struggles with the morality of returning her to "family" she does not know when she clearly wants to be Kiowa. Johanna comes to respect and love the Captain and refers to him as grandpa in her Kiowa language. This story is so sad and beautiful. I was pulled in and really cared about what happened to Johanna and the Captain. I would not be surprised if this is made into a movie, though I think that people should just read the book! In addition to enjoying a gorgeous story, I learned a lot about Texas and the western United States after the Civil War. I was most interested to learn that children were captured and adopted by various Native American tribes. The author states that they appeared to become completely Indian and that they did not readjust when returned to family. There were often tragic consequences. This piques my interest to learn more. News of the World provides the three main things I look for in a great book: interesting story, skilled writing, and exposure to new information.
Review: Well-Researched Novel - This was a very detailed step-back-in-time story about the relationship between a former captain and a young captive, newly freed from the Kiowa tribe. I absolutely felt like I was present in the time period. I'm Texan, and the author did a wonderful job painting the scenes, relating the various cultures, and even developing the various villains the pair encountered. Both main characters were very well fleshed out. I liked her writing style, as well. It was difficult to get into the story. Even though I liked the characters, I had a hard time wanting to read every single word. A lot of it was a telling of just what they were doing. I really enjoyed the tidbits revealed from the newspapers he carried and read to the townsfolk in the towns they traveled to. Very cool. It's a decent book that, for me, had a very satisfying ending.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #1,484,531 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #189 in Westerns (Books) #1,877 in Literary Fiction (Books) #3,766 in Books on CD |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 36,640 Reviews |

## Images

![News of the World - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61yBEBVfUbL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ READ THIS BOOK!
*by S***S on August 5, 2017*

This is a departure from my usual reading fare both in terms of content and setting. I am so happy that I tried something different. The story is very interesting and evocative and the writing strikes just the right balance of descriptive and sparse. I had one initial quibble with the writing, but I soon got over it. The author elects to not use quotation marks. At first, I could not figure out who was speaking or if I was even reading dialogue at all. It is the mark of a great story teller that after a couple of chapters I was not aware of the missing quotation marks. I fell into the rhythm and the story and followed along just fine. News of the World takes place in post-civil war Texas beginning in 1870. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, veteran of two wars, is in his early 70's and is a widow. He travels around Texas reading the news from various papers. He is offered a $50 gold piece to return a 10 year old girl to her aunt and uncle in San Antonio. Four years prior, some Kiowa Indians killed her family, kidnapped her, and raised her as their own. Johanna is of German heritage but does not initially remember any German or English. She knows only her Kiowa family and their ways. Captain Kidd needs the money and reluctantly agrees to help. The story follows their harrowing journey from Wichita Falls to San Antonio. They deal with various threats, including some men who want to buy Johanna and make her a prostitute. The Captain also tries to teach her English and more civilized ways so that she will fit in when she returns home. In addition, he struggles with the morality of returning her to "family" she does not know when she clearly wants to be Kiowa. Johanna comes to respect and love the Captain and refers to him as grandpa in her Kiowa language. This story is so sad and beautiful. I was pulled in and really cared about what happened to Johanna and the Captain. I would not be surprised if this is made into a movie, though I think that people should just read the book! In addition to enjoying a gorgeous story, I learned a lot about Texas and the western United States after the Civil War. I was most interested to learn that children were captured and adopted by various Native American tribes. The author states that they appeared to become completely Indian and that they did not readjust when returned to family. There were often tragic consequences. This piques my interest to learn more. News of the World provides the three main things I look for in a great book: interesting story, skilled writing, and exposure to new information.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Well-Researched Novel
*by M***N on March 13, 2025*

This was a very detailed step-back-in-time story about the relationship between a former captain and a young captive, newly freed from the Kiowa tribe. I absolutely felt like I was present in the time period. I'm Texan, and the author did a wonderful job painting the scenes, relating the various cultures, and even developing the various villains the pair encountered. Both main characters were very well fleshed out. I liked her writing style, as well. It was difficult to get into the story. Even though I liked the characters, I had a hard time wanting to read every single word. A lot of it was a telling of just what they were doing. I really enjoyed the tidbits revealed from the newspapers he carried and read to the townsfolk in the towns they traveled to. Very cool. It's a decent book that, for me, had a very satisfying ending.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 6 stars! Best of the Most Recent 100+ Novels I've Read
*by K***U on October 13, 2016*

Texas 1870. Seventy-one year old Civil War vet, Captain Kidd, agrees to return Johanna, a 10 year old girl and captive of the Kiowas for the past four years, to her relatives living near San Antonio. The money is good, though there are some negatives. The journey will be 400 miles and will take 3-4 weeks, the route is extremely dangerous, and the girl wants to return to her Kiowa family. And she no longer understands nor speaks English. There is another upside though. The Captain will have opportunities along the way to do his normal work - reading the news to townspeople. Not from local newspapers, so nothing about bake sales, births, deaths, or worst of all, Texas politics. No, the Captain's niche is world news: "News all the way from France. Nobody knew anything about the Franco-Prussian @War but all were jointly amazed by information that had come across the Atlantic to them, here in North Texas, alongside the flooding Red River. They had no idea how it had got here, through what strange lands it had traveled......He read from the Philadelphia Inquirer of Dr. Schliemann's search for windy Troy in Turkey. He read of the telegraph wires from Britain to India, an article in the Calcutta Times forwarded to the London Daily Telegraph....he read of the unfortunate Hansa crushed on the pack ice of the North Pole....This was proving the most popular as he could see by the small gestures of the audience; they bent forward, they fixed their eyes upon him to hear of undiscovered lands in the kingdoms of ice, fabulous beasts, perils overcome, snow people in furry suits." On the trail the Captain and Johanna have rather casual eating arrangements. One night, over barbecue, the Captain notices that she has sauce up to her wrists. Realizing that they will make stops in small towns like Dallas along the way and that they will be eating in a restaurant, the Captain begins lessons on the proper use of knife and fork. Johanna proves to be more clumsy than expected but the Captain feels some progress was made - until Johanna turns and throws her fork into a box stall. A funny scene but author Paulette Jiles morphs it into something else in the very next paragraph. "The Captain's shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch under his black formal coat. He was suddenly overwhelmed with pity for her. Torn from her parents, adopted by a strange culture, given new parents, then sold for a few blankets and some old silverware, now sent to stranger after stranger, crushed into peculiar clothing, surrounded by people of an unknown language and an unknown culture, and now she could not even eat her food without having to use outlandish instruments....He saw her look down at her stained hands and there were tears on her cheeks." There are so many great scenes like the ones mentioned above. It is heart-warming for the reader to witness how the bond between these two slowly develops. But this is 1870's Texas and violence can erupt anywhere, anytime. And so there is a good deal of tension woven throughout the story. Of course, Johanna runs away once or twice, and in the early days the Captain is hesitant to turn his back on her. The tension really amps up though on the trail when coming upon others - the possibilities are endless - outlaws, fellow travelers, soldiers, raiders, vigilantes, Comanche, Kiowa. Such encounters are infrequent but any one of them could have a fatal ending. The girl, the horses, even the Captain can sense, and sometimes smell, the unseen presence of others hidden only a few miles away..... It's a great story, expertly told. A book to be treasured and re-read. This is my first Jiles, and before I had finished it, I added three others by her to my reading list. "News of the World" is short-listed (five books are finalists) for this year's National Book Award which will be announced in November 2016. Highly recommended.

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*Product available on Desertcart Netherlands*
*Store origin: NL*
*Last updated: 2026-03-13*