Highly Recommended: WINGS OF AN EAGLE: THE GOLD MEDAL DREAMS OF BILLY MILLS, by Billy Mills and Donna Janell Bowman, illustrated by S. D. Nelson

                  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED 

Wings of an Eagle: The Gold Medal Dreams of Billy Mills

by Billy Mills (Oglala Lakota) and Donna Janell Bowman (not Native)

Illustrated by S. D. Nelson (Standing Rock Sioux Tribe)

Published in 2024

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Reader

Reviewer: Debbie Reese

Review Status: Highly Recommended

****

I spent several hours over the last two weeks, watching the 2024 Olympics. Part way in, I saw that Billy Mills was there. He was sharing photos to his Facebook page. I pulled up the video of his race and shared it with my family. I've seen it many times before, but every time I watch it, I feel a huge surge of excitement. And joy, and pride. Take a look:

Pretty cool, isn't it?!

Now, order a copy of his autobiographical picture book, Wings of an Eagle: The Gold Medal Dreams of Billy Mills! I've heard him speak and know some of his life story but I'm really glad to see his book. Published on July 2, 2024 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, I got my copy during the 2024 Olympics. 

There are many pages that stood out as I read the book. His parents died when he was a child. His dad's words after his mother's death become a refrain as he grows into adulthood. A photographer asked him to step away from a group of runners because of his skin color. 

In this post, I focus on the page in his adulthood when he's a Marine at a base in California. Up to then, he ran in high school at Haskell Institute in Kansas, and then in college at the University of Kansas. On the page where he talks about the grueling training he does while he's in the Marines, we read:

I visualize the finish-line tape breaking across my chest 

again and again, 

as if fueled by Indigenous ancestors

who didn't give up when all odds were against them.

Their footsteps are etched into the earth

like a story waiting to be told.

When I qualify for the 1964 Olympics,

I carry the hopes of many.

Because we are stronger together.

I'm going to repeat (and put in bold) some of those words, here: "fueled by Indigenous ancestors who didn't give up when all odds were against them." Across the US and Canada, I hear similar words from Native people. Fueled by Indigenous ancestors who didn't give up. Heck, that guides me, too! When things feel weighty I remember Po'Pay and Pueblo ancestors who didn't give up in the 1500s when European invaders sought to destroy us. Native leaders negotiated to protect the generations that came after them. I suppose some of you are thinking my words here are sappy, but that's ok. I'm here. Billy's here. We're here. 

And he's leading, still! Mills established an organization called Running Strong for American Indian Youth. The final pages of the book provide many photos of his work with youth. Back matter also includes a terrific note from Mills, one from the illustrator, S. D. Nelson, and one from the co-author, Donna Janell Bowman. If you've heard me in a professional development workshop, you know I direct teachers, librarians, parents, and caregivers to study the back matter before using the book with children! There, you'll get information you probably never had before you picked up this wonderful book. 

Update at 4PM on August 13: There's a curriculum guide! Written by Dr. Natalie Martinez! She rocks. Download and use it. 

I'll end this review with a request to get multiple copies of the book for your classroom and school library, and with S.D. Nelson's illustration of Billy crossing the finish line. See the joy in Billy's face? And look at that eagle (remember I said his dad's words become a refrain?)! Highly recommended! 

Debbie--have you seen S.D. Nelson's SITTING BULL: LAKOTA WARRIOR AND DEFENDER OF HIS PEOPLE

Last year, I referenced S. D. Nelson's Sitting Bull: Lakota Warrior and Defender of His People in an article I did for School Library Journal. I hadn't read it then, and haven't studied it yet, but have had some questions about it (hence, it is now in my "Debbie--have you seen" category). I do have a copy and want to say a few words about it. (Update: It was published in 2015 by Abrams.)

I'm critical of books wherein the writer has invented dialogue for a real person. As a scholar in children's literature who works very hard to help others see biased, stereotypical, inaccurate, romantic and derogatory depictions of Native peoples in children's books, invented dialogue looms large for me.

In short: I need to know if there is evidence or documentation that the person actually said those words. This concern holds, whether the writer is Native or not.

In Nelson's Sitting Bull, the entire text is invented dialogue--and invented thoughts.

It is constructed as a first person biography. It is presented to us as if Sitting Bull is telling us his life story, after he's been killed. Along the way, we have some dialogue, but mostly we have what Nelson imagines Sitting Bull to have thought.

On February 1, 2016 in The Stories in Between, Julie Danielson wrote:

Increasingly, today’s readers also want to see dialogue attribution in the back matter of biographies. That’s because invented dialogue is still a touchy subject. You have those who think that it has no place and that any sort of made-up dialogue puts the biography squarely in the category of historical fiction. Then you have those who think such dialogue is acceptable, helps bring the story to life, and can still be considered nonfiction. In 2014, Betsy Bird wrote here about her changing feelings on the subject (“In general I stand by my anti-faux dialogue stance but recently I’ve been cajoled into softening, if not abandoning, my position”), which made me nod my head a lot.

Here’s where I (and many others) draw the line: if a biographer invents dialogue or shifts around facts in any sort of way, they need to come clean about this in the back matter. A great example of this is Greg Pizzoli’s Tricky Vic: The Impossibly True Story of the Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower, the story of con artist Robert Miller, published last year and named a Kirkus Best Book of 2015. There’s a line in the starred review of the book that states: “The truth behind Miller’s exploits is often difficult to discern, and Pizzoli notes the research challenges in an afterword.” 

"Come clean" is, perhaps, a loaded way to characterize what Danielson is calling for, but I think it is an important call. I want to know what Nelson made up.

Clearly, this is not a hard and fast rule. If it was, Sitting Bull would not have been selected as an Honor Book by the American Indian Library Association.  And--this isn't the first time the field of children's literature has looked critically at invented dialogue. Myra Zarnowski's chapter, Intermingling fact and Fiction, published in 2001 in The Best in Children's Nonfiction, has a good overview.

If I do an in-depth look at Sitting Bull, I'll be back. For now, though, I am not comfortable recommending it, and I may revisit what I said about his Buffalo Bird Girl when I wrote about it, back in 2013. It, too, is a biography.

I anticipate questions from readers who wonder if S.D. Nelson ought to get a pass on invented dialogue because he is Lakota. My question is: did he work with any of Sitting Bull's descendants as he wrote the story? Did any of them read the manuscript? If they did, and they found it acceptable, I'd love to see that in the book. On the cover, in fact! If I do hear anything like that, I'll be back to update this post.

BUFFALO BIRD GIRL: A HIDATSA STORY, by S.D. Nelson

The subject of most biographies of Native women are Pocahontas and Sacajawea. I did a search of the Comprehensive Children's Literature Database to get a rough sense of how many books there are about each one. I limited the search to those published between 2000 and now. I got 188 on Pocahontas, and 192 on Sacagawea. Quite a lot, don't you think? Some critics say those two women are heralded by those who seek to celebrate figures in U.S. history because they helped Europeans. Some say they were diplomats; others say they were traitors.

My point in sharing those publication numbers is to say that I think publishers would do well to publish biographies of other Native women!

With S. D. Nelson's Buffalo Bird Girl: A Hidatsa Story, Abrams has scored a big win. It is racking up starred reviews by the mainstream review journals and by those who look more critically at the portrayals of American Indians. It is, for example, on the Cooperative Center for Children's Books CHOICES 2013 list.

Nelson's art invites the reader to pick up the book. Once inside, there's a mix of his art and photographs of Hidatsa people. The back matter provides a timeline that teachers will find helpful when using the book in the classroom. With the Common Core thrust upon them, this biography will surely get lot of use in classrooms.

I agree with the praise the book is receiving, but have one quibble. I wish that the book cover and text featured her Hidatsa name, Waheenee, which means Buffalo Bird Woman, instead of "Buffalo Bird Girl." I'm guessing the change from woman to girl was a strategy to help young readers identify with Waheenee as a girl, but I think Nelson's illustrations make that point quite well.

Some background

Nelson tells us that his source for this biography is Waheenee: An Indian Girl's Story; Told by Herself to Gilbert L. Wilson.  Wilson's book was published in 1921.


Scholars in American Indian Studies and American Indian Literatures point out that the audience for these early books was not a Native one. As evidence, we point to text in the books, where the author is speaking directly to the reader. Consider, for example, Wilson's Myths of the Red Children published in 1907. In the Foreword, Wilson wrote that fairy tales from Europe were delightful, but that with Myths of the Red Children, America's "little reading folk" could develop "a kindly feeling for a noble but vanishing race" (p. vi). I think it is fair to say he was not thinking of Native children as readers of Myths of the Red Children. 

Take note, too, of Wilson's use of "vanishing race." Wilson was part of the research efforts of the late 1800s and early 1900s that sought to document Native cultures before we died out. A major problem with that research effort is that many of the researchers did their work largely unaware of their own perspective, which is an outsiders perspective. Many did not understanding much of what they observed. A year after Myths of the Red Children was published, Wilson began his work with the Hidatsa people.

One outcome of that work was Waheenee. Like Myths of the Red Children, it was written for a child audience. Its final pages (beginning on page 183), speak directly to that young reader:

Young Americans who wish to grow up strong and healthy should live much out of doors; and there is no pleasanter way to do this than in an Indian camp. Such a camp you can make yourself, in your back yard or an empty lot or in a neighboring wood.

Following that passage are instructions for making a pole hunting lodge and several pages of recipes. I think it fair to say that Wilson was keen on playing Indian.


Nelson is wise not to echo Wilson on that point. His careful use of Wilson's material is important in other ways, too.


Buffalo Bird Woman was born in 1839 and died in 1932. She lived through a lot of changes. The Hidatsa were part of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. Subsequent violations of the treaty resulted in a huge loss of their land. During her lifetime, they were moved to a reservation. There were several devastating smallpox epidemics.

Of those significant events, only smallpox is included in Wilson's book. On page 9 of his book, Wilson says: "Then smallpox came." We all know that smallpox came from Europeans, but that information isn't provided anywhere in Wilson's book. In his picture book, Nelson does indicate the source for smallpox (p. 3):

It arrived with the coming of the white men. They did not bring the sickness on purpose, but Indians could not fight off this disease--they had no immunity to the dreaded evil spirit.

During Waheenee's lifetime, her people experienced tremendous loss of land and were moved onto a reservation, but these things aren't included in Wilson's book. When the word 'enemy' appears in the book, it is used only to describe other tribes. Doesn't that strike you as curious? Biased, perhaps? It seems to me that Wilson wanted his readers (remember, this book was written for white children) to develop a viewpoint of Indians as aggressors.

Nelson talks about enemy tribes, too, but doesn't leave out reservations. On page 39 of his Buffalo Bird Girl, Nelson (in Buffalo Woman's voice) writes:

Like-a-Fishhook is gone now. There are no buffalo left to hunt, and the fur trade ended long ago. The government of the United States said my people had to move from our village. They promised to provide rations of food and clothing if we lived on a reservation. The government built roads, schools, and churches. They told us that our children had to learn to live the white man's way. So we Hidatsa, as well as the Mandan and Arikara people, gave up our round earth lodges and began living in square cabins on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

I would have loved to see one more page about the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara people... In the "Today and the Future" section of the Author's Note, Wilson writes this:

The Hidatsa people are still here, as are the Mandan and the Arikara. They remain one sovereign nation. Each member of the nation has the same freedoms as every citizen of the United States. Like all other human beings, they face the many challenges of a rapidly changing world. Today they govern themselves with self-determination. Their words and actions give shape to their lives and hope for their children. 

I want teachers who use the book to put that information front and center of their use of Buffalo Bird Girl. Introduce students to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation website. Teach the book by teaching children about Waheenee's people---as they are today. Teach them what sovereign nation means! Show them the pictures on the site! And while you're at it, teach them about Nelson's tribe, too. Visit the website of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation!

We need more books like this one, by authors like S.D. Nelson. Thanks, Mr. Nelson, and you, too, Abrams, for Buffalo Bird Girl. 

S. D. Nelson's GREET THE DAWN THE LAKOTA WAY

This is my favorite page...

... in S. D. Nelson's Greet the Dawn the Lakota Way. Why, you wonder? Simple. As a Pueblo Indian kid growing up on our reservation in New Mexico, I rode a yellow school bus just like that. Illustrations like that make me smile because they reflect my reality, my personal experience, my life as a Native child. Native children today need that sort of thing because it provides them with a mirror of who they are.

On the facing page, several children run towards the bus. Some are carrying band instruments! Again! That was me! Carrying my clarinet!

Enough reminiscing.

Here's the cover for Nelson's book:

Ok.... more reminiscing. My grandfather, dad, uncle and brothers had horses that we rode around the reservation. We laugh today, remembering Perla, the mare that would simply lay down to get rid of us. I vividly recall feeling the shift in her bones at that moment when she decided she was going to lay down. We'd have to pull our legs up quick-like and be ready to leap off. And of course, we were riding in the same sort of clothes the kids on the cover of Greet the Dawn are wearing.

The beauty in Nelson's book is that he puts our existence in the present day, but through his art, he conveys the fact that in our communities, we are in touch with our identity as Native people whose spiritualities--across our many nations--are unique, vibrant, and, like the air we breathe, all around us.

Another couple of huge plus factors for Nelson's book is that it includes Lakota songs, in Lakota and English. And, he notes the source for the songs in "A Note about the Illustrations and the Text" in the back of the book. He takes care, in other words, to point us to his sources. There's no ambiguity in what he says.

One last comment... the page where a family is shown outside at night, welcoming the moon? An elder is shown, sitting on a folding chair. That is another familiar image, firmly grounded in my reality.

Order a copy today from a small bookstore, like Louise Erdrich's Birchbark Books. Greet the Dawn the Lakota Way was published in 2012 by the South Dakota State Historical Society Press.

Oh! Forgot to include the trailer. Here it is:

And... Nelson is Standing Rock Sioux.