Brave Bird at Wounded Knee: A Story of Protest on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (I Am America Set 5), Rachel Bithell (author), Eric Freeberg (Illustrator)

 

Publication Jan. 1, 2023

Impressive. Patsy Antoine may be a fictional character but the events are real. As one with some Native ancestry, it's a story I knew but seeing it through the eyes of 11-year old Patsy, who is half-Lakota, made it all the more real to me. 

Author Rachel Bithell not only knows her material, but how to bring it alive to her audience, in this case ages 8-12/grades 4-6. She presents the material in a variety of ways, including letters, news clippings, and a journal Patsy begins when she visits the reservation with her father. There are illustrations interspersed throughout which, in their simplicity, add greatly to the mood, plus real photos at the end (of the digital version I read).

I liked the books straight-forward approach, one that neither elevates not derides the events of the occupation. It does, however, take the stance, via Patsy's belief, that violence isn't an answer. In the process, we learn a bit about life on the reservation in 1973 -- many still had only outhouses! -- as well as some words in Lakota. We're also gently directed to two excellent sources of information via a short research paper Patsy is urged to do for "extra credit" for her social studies class: "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" and "Black Elk Speaks". Both are on my own bookshelves. 

Excellent work and one that should be shared. Reminders like Patsy's Lakota father having to hide his identity while her white mother goes to the bank to apply for a home loan are a reminder that equality touches many. And, that journal? Given to her by an understanding, caring teacher. 

Thanks #NetGalley and #NorthStarEditions - #JollyFishPress for allowing me to reexamine the story of Wounded Knee. It's a story more should know about.

For blog readers: Here's the publisher's blurb for the book, taken from GoodReads:

"

It’s 1973, and in Denver, Colorado, Patsy Antoine doesn’t usually give much thought to her relatives living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. After all, her classmates don’t even know she’s part Lakota. Then she learns the tiny town of Wounded Knee has been occupied. Now Patsy’s relatives are stuck amid the conflict between American Indian Movement activists and Oglala Lakota tribe members on the one side, and federal marshals and FBI agents on the other. When Patsy visits her relatives on Pine Ridge, she learns more about her heritage and the clashing perspectives on the Wounded Knee occupation. As she connects with her roots, Patsy must grapple with the complexities of the conflict and of being biracial. It’s the storytellers that preserve a nation’s history. But what happens when some stories are silenced? The I Am America series features fictional stories based on important historical events about people whose voices have been excluded, lost, or forgotten over time.

160 pages, Paperback