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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
I hoped for more in the ending, but this was an informative family read aloud.
The author's book Someone Named Eva was one of my favorite books we read for my daughter's book club. Unfortunately, my high expectations for another historical fiction book by the same author weren't met. The premise of the novel is perfect--telling the story of a young Lakota girl who attends a missionary school run by white settlers in the Badlands region of South Dakota. Learning about the coercion of young children to attend these types of schools and a bit of what they experienced was what earned the three stars. What was missing was more character development, more details to the story, more MORE to the story. I wasn't drawn in like I was with the author's previous work.
This was a great book about the forced placement of indigenous children in boarding schools.
I'm glad books like this are being written now. I grew up utterly ignorant of the Indian boarding schools that wrenched children away from their families from the 1800s all the way into the 1960s. It's one more shameful and disgusting parts of our national history. Wolf's book provides an introduction to the topic that is appropriate for upper elementary aged readers without minimizing what the children had to endure and tells a good story.
I appreciate that the author wants to give "a voice to children who were silenced for so long." I'm not sure as a teacher the best way to introduce these difficult topics but I know it is important. I'm forever correcting the students use of the term "tribes" for "nations" and that has lead to some good conversations about how language can be used to oppress people or influence the way we think less of a group of people (or less of ourselves if those terms are used to describe our communities). This is definitely one I need to get for the classroom library.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
also posted on my blog
Runs with Courage by Joan M. Wolf follows a little girl named Four Winds. She is a young Lakota girl that has never seen a white person before, her family was moved to a reservation which is slowly killing her tribe. She will soon meet white people when she is taken against her will to keep her tribe from starving to death. She will make great sacrifices, endure endless abuse to ensure her people are safe.
This is the gripping, fascinating story for resistance and culture, a book eager at sharing the truth. An essential read for all American children today about the horrible boarding schools that Native children were forced into. The Federal Government began sending Native children to boarding schools in the 1870s. This was a time when the government was at war with indigenous people, in the end, a war ended up becoming a genocide that nearly wiped entire cultures from the map.
While this is a great story and I know children endure horrific abuse inside of these boarding schools I am unsure of how accurate this story is. I didn't find any white washing or stereotyping in this book. I found for such a dense read this book was relatively quick to get through.
This is a middle school book that doesn't shy away from the tough topics. It shows the rough and dark spot of American history from the perspective of a young girl that could have gone through it. Her story is just one of countless stories that actually happened. It is a great book for children to learn history, face their struggles, and ultimately learn to use the past to help change the future.
I received this book for review from Sleeping Bear Press in exchange for my honest but completely unbiased review. All thoughts, opinions are my own.
Got it for my daughter, but enjoyed reading it myself. An interesting, heartbreaking story told through a young Lakota girl's eyes about one of the many atrocities this country likes to pretend didn't happen or quickly gloss over.
Four Winds is a member of the Lakota tribe. One day, when she is 10-years-old, a wagon with white people on it comes into her tribe's camp and change their life forever. Four Winds is taken to a boarding school where she has no access to her family, all her belongings from home are burned, and she is forbidden to speak anything but English.
I understand that Debbie Reece has some misgivings about this book, but to me it appears that the author consulted knowledgeable resources and did in-depth research to make this story as historically accurate as possible. It is a very dark, shameful time in our history and I believe that students need to be reading this book and others like it, so we don't perpetuate or repeat this grave errors.
I understand that Debbie Reece has some misgivings about this book, but to me it appears that the author consulted knowledgeable resources and did in-depth research to make this story as historically accurate as possible. It is a very dark, shameful time in our history and I believe that students need to be reading this book and others like it, so we don't perpetuate or repeat this grave errors.
also posted on my blog
Runs with Courage by Joan M. Wolf follows a little girl named Four Winds. She is a young Lakota girl that has never seen a white person before, her family was moved to a reservation which is slowly killing her tribe. She will soon meet white people when she is taken against her will to keep her tribe from starving to death. She will make great sacrifices, endure endless abuse to ensure her people are safe.
This is the gripping, fascinating story for resistance and culture, a book eager at sharing the truth. An essential read for all American children today about the horrible boarding schools that Native children were forced into. The Federal Government began sending Native children to boarding schools in the 1870s. This was a time when the government was at war with indigenous people, in the end, a war ended up becoming a genocide that nearly wiped entire cultures from the map.
While this is a great story and I know children endure horrific abuse inside of these boarding schools I am unsure of how accurate this story is. I didn't find any white washing or stereotyping in this book. I found for such a dense read this book was relatively quick to get through.
This is a middle school book that doesn't shy away from the tough topics. It shows the rough and dark spot of American history from the perspective of a young girl that could have gone through it. Her story is just one of countless stories that actually happened. It is a great book for children to learn history, face their struggles, and ultimately learn to use the past to help change the future.
I received this book for review from Sleeping Bear Press in exchange for my honest but completely unbiased review. All thoughts, opinions are my own.