Brave Bird at Wounded Knee - by Rachel Bithell (Paperback)

About the Book

During the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, a Lakota girl reconnects with her heritage, grapples with clashing views on the conflict, and determines who she wants to be.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"This absorbing, sensitively written work of historical fiction illuminates an important event seldom addressed in children's literature." --Children's Literature

"A respectful, evenhanded view of a pivotal historical event." --Kirkus Reviews