Wounded Knee [Hardcover]

Neil Waldman (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

In this stirring historical account, Neil Waldman presents the background events that led up to the final and unforgettable confrontation between two proud and disparate cultures.

Waldman begins the story of Wounded Knee with the settling of North America by Europeans, the land that tribes of nomadic hunters had found centuries earlier, and where they had developed their own unique culture. When the settlers arrived and tried to tame the frontier wilderness of the west, a conflict began which would last for decades.

Unfamiliar with European concepts of ownership and diplomacy, the Lakota warrior tribes of the western plains could make no sense of the intruders who were suddenly staking claims to the mountains and prairies they called home. And in turn, the settlers felt unjustly threatened by the "red heathens" who attacked them even when they turned useless prairie into productive farmland.

Finally, the Lakota were forced to cast aside their ancient ways and live on reservations, where the eastern settlers hoped they would learn white ways of living. Then, on December 28, 1890, at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, the last free remnants of the proud nomadic hunters faced the might of the U.S. Army. And another series of misunderstandings left the blood of the last free Lakotas trickling into the earth.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This moving yet balanced overview of the massacre of the Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee gives young readers insight into a painful history of conflict. Waldman (The Golden City) immediately captures the audience's sympathy and interest with the heart-pounding experiences of the then-young Lakota warrior, Black Elk, who awakens to gunfire and then witnesses the cavalry slaughter more than 140 Lakota, including women and children. "When I saw this I wished I had died too," Black Elk later says in one of the many unsourced quotations here. Waldman characterizes the tragedy at Wounded Knee as the "inevitable conclusion of the clash between two disparate nations," and proceeds to explore the divergent values, religions and ways of life that led up to it. For example, Lakota society did not invest chiefs with absolute power each brave was expected to follow his own conscience, so that treaties signed by chiefs were not binding upon their warriors. Washington officials negotiating with the Lakota did not understand Lakota notions of land ownership. To the Lakota, land lost in a battle with a neighboring tribe was still considered their own, lost only temporarily; whites' incursions into such land was viewed as an "openly aggressive act." Paintings, most of them based on actual portraits or photographs, are typically rendered in black-and-white or sepia, with well-placed hints of color. More subjective than the camera, Waldman's art underscores the elegiac mood of the discussion. Ages 8-12.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-This remarkable and well-written history begins with a vivid description of the massacre at Wounded Knee Creek in December, 1890, as related by Black Elk, a Lakota brave who witnessed the tragedy. From that stark, yet poetically related beginning evolves the story of the ill-fated interactions between the white settlers and the government on one hand, and the Native American people who lived in and around the Black Hills of South Dakota on the other. It is a story of cultural misunderstandings, of journalistic excesses, and of intentional as well as unintentional betrayals. Each of the incidents described, from the first contacts of whites with the Native Americans through the massacre that marked the end of the Indian wars, is presented in a balanced, nonjudgmental way. Although Waldman's sympathies clearly lie with the Native Americans, he does not shrink from reporting the excesses that some of the Indians engaged in, and he demonstrates how the settlers' fears were often fueled by inflammatory newspaper articles. Waldman's distinctive illustrations add texture to his narrative. Many of the paintings are based on well-known early photographs from the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress collections. The only flaw in this otherwise wonderful book is the absence of maps, other than a hand-drawn sketch of the Wounded Knee camp. Without one, children may have trouble visualizing the changes in the scope of the land that the Native Americans controlled, as over time their range diminished. Still, this is a title that every library should consider purchasing.-Linda Greengrass, Bank Street College Library, New York City

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Atheneum; 1 edition (April 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689825595
• ISBN-13: 978-0689825590
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,314,640 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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