Bear Dancer: The Story of a Ute Girl - Softcover

Wyss, Thelma Hatch Hatch

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1442421568 ISBN 13: 9781442421561

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2010

Synopsis

Elk Girl, sister of a Ute chief, lives a traditional life with her tribe high in the Rocky Mountains in 1860. Elk Girl is bold: She loves to hunt deer with her brother, and she races her pony to win. She also knows the importance of ceremonies like the Bear Dance, which wakes the bears from hibernation and celebrates spring. But all of that changes when Cheyenne warriors capture Elk Girl. They take her to the Great Plains and make her a slave. On the Plains, Elk Girl encounters white men for the first time, and she sees how the Cheyenne have come to depend on their handouts. She also sees the truth of what her brother has told her: The white men are the real enemy. Their soldiers are everywhere. Even if Elk Girl could escape, how would she get home? Thelma Hatch Wyss has crafted a moving story based on the life of a real girl. It is both a gripping personal adventure and a compelling look at two cultures confronting each other at a pivotal time of change.

About this title

About the Author

Thelma Hatch Wyss lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. She is the author
of Here at the Scenic-Vu Motel, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults;
Ten Miles from Winnemucca, a Junior Library Guild Selection and a
Bank Street College Best Book of the Year; and on the McElderry list,
Bear Dancer: The Story of a Ute Girl, which won the Mountains &
Plains Independent Booksellers Association Regional Book Award and was on
the New York Public Library's "100 Titles for Reading and Sharing" list.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8–This fascinating story is based on a real person, Elk Girl, who lived during a time of great upheaval and loss of tradition. Wyss describes in vivid detail life among the Ute people of the early 1860s, including their loss of hunting lands and traditional ways at the hands of white settlers and laws. During the years in which the novel is set, the teen is captured by the Cheyenne and later traded to the Arapaho for a sack of wormy treaty flour. Eventually rescued by a white soldier, she becomes Susan Carroll and is finally returned to her village to find her people preparing to resign themselves to signing the White Men's treaty. Wyss's portrayal of Elk Girl within various tribal communities gives readers an insight into Native culture and history. Most works on Elk Girl fixate on her adult life as Susan Johnson (her married name), and while her heroics during the Meeker Massacre of 1879, negotiating for the safe return of several white women and children, are noteworthy, her tribal life within the Ute culture is equally, if not more, important. An excellent addition to historical-fiction collections.–G. Alyssa Parkinson, Highland Township Library, MI
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1442421568
• ISBN 13: 9781442421561
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 192