The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (Young Readers Adaptation): Life in Native America

Adapted for teen readers from the 2019 original, Treuer’s seminal account offers a fresh, distinct historical reconsideration.

The author’s purpose is clear from the outset: to present a deliberate counternarrative to mainstream assumptions and push back against the constrictive specter of the

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framing of the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890 as a turning point representing the end of Native American cultures. In seven chapters spanning prehistorical times to the present, this chronicle of Indigenous communities and peoples in North America is a scintillating version reduced in length but not breadth. Beginning with a brief overview of the pre-colonization period and the ensuing violent disruptions of the Europeans, the opening chapter also covers Indigenous resistance. The next chapter depicts the role of the U.S. government in an ever increasing, violent push for assimilation via boarding schools and the Dawes Act. The further the book goes into the 20th century and the rise of Native American social action in the 1960s and 1970s, such as through the American Indian Movement, the more Treuer includes firsthand stories from his research interviews. These accounts clearly delineate the ties between the continued impact of the past and the possibilities for a viable, hard-fought future for Native American lives. This essential work ends with a review of the Standing Rock protest and its potential and asks the fundamental, yet-to-be-answered question: “What kind of country do we want to be?”

Utterly vital in its historical prowess, essential in its portraits of lived experiences. (notes, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)

-Kirkus Review

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