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lizmart88's review against another edition
3.0
Wilma Mankiller was elected to be the first female chief of a Native American tribe in 1991, when she was elected by the Cherokee Tribe. This is her story.
It's a memoir that incorporates her life with history mostly about the Cherokee Tribe, but other seminal Native American events.
It reads easily. She starts each chapter with a traditional Cherokee story, which was fun to learn more about their folklore. Some chapters are more indigenous history and others focus more on her life.
She is an incredible woman who survived a near death car accident, kidney disease and a kidney transplant, while raising two strong girls. She lived in Oklahoma and San Francisco area, and was involved in the Alcatraz uprising of the late sixties, which spurred her entry into politics and organizing.
Definitely recommend!
It's a memoir that incorporates her life with history mostly about the Cherokee Tribe, but other seminal Native American events.
It reads easily. She starts each chapter with a traditional Cherokee story, which was fun to learn more about their folklore. Some chapters are more indigenous history and others focus more on her life.
She is an incredible woman who survived a near death car accident, kidney disease and a kidney transplant, while raising two strong girls. She lived in Oklahoma and San Francisco area, and was involved in the Alcatraz uprising of the late sixties, which spurred her entry into politics and organizing.
Definitely recommend!
oriad313's review against another edition
5.0
Mankiller is an amazing and tells her story with remarkable balance. She uses traditional storytelling formats and folk stories to introduce the history of her people and contextually her personal experiences within that history. Her pride in her people is balanced with an unassuming humility that never under- or overstates the impact of her work. I love how this book weaves together multiple narratives so clearly. Her personal chronology at the beginning and the historical timeline at the end provide helpful bookend to people not used to a narrative style that moves between times. I found it engaging and well researched while using language that is straight forward enough for a school aged reader to follow. Highly recommend.
jenniferbbookdragon's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I had the pleasure of hearing Wilma Mankiller speak in the early 1990s, and her passion for justice and equality were clear. Her book does a great job weaving the history and traditions of the Cherokee Nation with her personal story, and this strengthens both. Mankiller's life and work were filled with many challenges and enormous achievements.
baghaii's review against another edition
4.0
Wilma Mankiller is a former chief of the Cherokee people who died in 2010.
In this book, she weaves her own biography into a larger history of the Cherokee people while starting each chapter with short excerpts that are related to the creation myths and values of the Cherokee people.
From reading this book, I learned that the Cherokee syllabary was not created until the early 1800s by Sequoyah.
I learned that a lot of older Cherokee people were Republicans because they still hated Andrew Jackson for the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
Mankiller grew up as one of eleven children in her family. She grew up in poverty in rural Oklahoma until the family was moved to San Francisco when the Bureau of Indian Affairs felt it was best to get Indians off the reservations and into the rest of society.
Mankiller was friends with Gloria Steinem and struggled with a number of health complications during her life including a debilitating kidney disease.
In this book, she weaves her own biography into a larger history of the Cherokee people while starting each chapter with short excerpts that are related to the creation myths and values of the Cherokee people.
From reading this book, I learned that the Cherokee syllabary was not created until the early 1800s by Sequoyah.
I learned that a lot of older Cherokee people were Republicans because they still hated Andrew Jackson for the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
Mankiller grew up as one of eleven children in her family. She grew up in poverty in rural Oklahoma until the family was moved to San Francisco when the Bureau of Indian Affairs felt it was best to get Indians off the reservations and into the rest of society.
Mankiller was friends with Gloria Steinem and struggled with a number of health complications during her life including a debilitating kidney disease.
samtheowl96's review against another edition
5.0
A fucking mazing !! Wilma is a great woman, and very respectful. I would love to meet her one day.
jiujensu's review against another edition
4.0
This is a great read about the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation. She overcame a phenomenal amount and contributed much to society. The tone of the book, however, was very reserved and overly concerned with moral uprightness than openness.
julie_tibbs's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Absolute work of art!
cocoonofbooks's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars. This book starts with a heavy focus on the history of the Cherokee people and includes more and more of Mankiller's own life as the book goes on. The content was well worth reading, but I wish the writing had been better; in memoirs I'm used to a series of individual stories that serve to represent different periods of a person's life, but Mankiller tells very few "one day this happened" stories and sticks mostly to generalities in a kind of "I did this and then I did this and after a while I decided to do this instead" approach.
If you can get past the writing, though, this is still worth a read, especially if you aren't already familiar with a lot of the history of indigenous peoples in the United States. Having read [b:Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee|76401|Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee An Indian History of the American West|Dee Brown|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388209846s/76401.jpg|1240262], there wasn't a ton that was new or surprising to me, but the focus specifically on the Cherokee Nation helped to provide a detailed backdrop for Mankiller's own story. Expected to become a docile housewife in the 1960s, she instead pursued her passions and ended up involved with a lot of the activism happening in the late 1960s while also working for the Cherokee Nation. She then dealt with a serious accident and two major health crises before becoming deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation and eventually the first female principal chief. I wish the writing had had more detail than the factual statements she provided of the order of events, because her personality doesn't really come through, while at the same time you understand that she's clearly a remarkable woman to have been through everything she has and still accomplish everything she did.
I'd be interested to know if any existing biographies of Wilma Mankiller provide a more full-color picture of her as a person than this autobiography does. Still, I appreciated the chance to hear her story (and the story of her people) told in her own voice. I'm glad to have read this.
If you can get past the writing, though, this is still worth a read, especially if you aren't already familiar with a lot of the history of indigenous peoples in the United States. Having read [b:Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee|76401|Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee An Indian History of the American West|Dee Brown|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388209846s/76401.jpg|1240262], there wasn't a ton that was new or surprising to me, but the focus specifically on the Cherokee Nation helped to provide a detailed backdrop for Mankiller's own story. Expected to become a docile housewife in the 1960s, she instead pursued her passions and ended up involved with a lot of the activism happening in the late 1960s while also working for the Cherokee Nation. She then dealt with a serious accident and two major health crises before becoming deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation and eventually the first female principal chief. I wish the writing had had more detail than the factual statements she provided of the order of events, because her personality doesn't really come through, while at the same time you understand that she's clearly a remarkable woman to have been through everything she has and still accomplish everything she did.
I'd be interested to know if any existing biographies of Wilma Mankiller provide a more full-color picture of her as a person than this autobiography does. Still, I appreciated the chance to hear her story (and the story of her people) told in her own voice. I'm glad to have read this.