Staff Reviews

After the death of her mother, Hanna and her father strike out to the Dakota territory to open a dry goods store. But there are a few problems. For one thing, LaForge already has dry goods and suiting retailers; what they need is a dress shop. Hanna has mad sewing skills and a taste for fashion, but will her father let her get involved when her schooling comes first? But it gets worse, for Hanna is half Asian, and there’s pushback from the community as to exactly how welcoming they’re going to be. School might not be roadblock, after all. And things get more complicated when Hanna befriends a group of Native women and children gathering plants off the reservation. And on top of that, will any of the kids wind up befriending Hanna? Lots of authentic historical details kept me engaged in this attempting-to-fix-the-problems homage to the works of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Great for adults and kids ten and up.

With Prairie Lotus, Newbery Medal winner Linda Sue Park has written a gem of American historical fiction for middle grade readers. In her author's note, Park says it's a story she's been writing nearly all her life. "It is an attempt to reconcile my childhood love of the Little House books with my adult knowledge of their painful shortcomings." To reconcile the attitudes of Laura Ingalls Wilder's characters toward people of color while honoring the books, Park gives us 14-year-old Hanna, the half Asian daughter of a white father and a mother who was both Chinese and Korean. After her mother's tragic illness and death, Hanna and her father leave California in 1880 for the Dakota Territory, where four Little House books were also set. Hanna will need all the loving wisdom Mama gave her in order to be strong in the face of challenges and injustices from people who have never lived around a Chinese person and react very badly. The things Hanna and Mama wanted for her - going to school, designing beautiful dresses, even walking safely in town - can seem impossible, but it's the details of meeting these problems on a frontier that make the book so textured and meaningful. Hanna is a strong, determined girl who will search for ways to treat everyone justly, and to find just treatment for herself. This is richly developed Americana, and I am deeply grateful!