"Peter Razor's coming-of-age story is a shocking revelation and succeeds where most other Native American autobiographies have failed. While the Locust Slept never confuses honesty with the truth, never descends into racial blaming, and refuses to use Ojibwe culture as a mirror in which the travesties of modern times are reflected. Instead, in a voice as simple and innocent as our childhood should be, he lets his experiences as an orphan tell the harrowing story of a lost generation of Indian children. While the Locust Slept is a treasure."
David Treuer, author of Little and The Hiawatha

"Peter Razor spins an intense and endearing tale of an American Indian youth abandoned to the cruel mercy of the state. As memoir, his voice is amazingly distinctive--giving a cultural story of human survival. As history, his work informs us of an almost hidden, dark time in our past."
Mark Anthonly Rolo (Bad River Ojibwe), former editor of The Circle, and author of My Mother is Now Earth

"Razor's story is a revelation . . . and is part of an honorable tradition of memoir writing by Native American writers, including Linda Hogan, Paula Gunn Allen, [and] N. Scott Momaday."
Library Journal

"A stirring tale of a Native American childhood . . . recounted in spare prose loaded with feeling and insight. . . . [A] valuable coming of age story."
Publishers Weekly

"Starvation, savage kicks, plotted escapes . . . not tales from a penal colony, these episodes were part of Peter Razor's early life, spent as a ward of the state. . . . While the Locust Slept is the evenhanded, compelling tale of his harrowing childhood. . . . While the Locust Slept is memoir of the best kind--a clear testimony to events of [the] past."
Ripsaw News

"A perfectly pitched memoir."
Kirkus