DZÁNI YÁZHI NAAZBAA’

From text in both English and Navajo, readers learn of Dzáníbaa’ and her capture by soldiers. Details of the lack of food and maltreatment will be disturbing to readers but a part of history that should be known, although much will be left unexplained: discussion of food “strange to their bodies,” the arrival of puberty and the significance of the kinaaldá ceremony and Sherman’s role in the Treaty of 1868. Those not already familiar with the history of this painful episode in American history will be left questioning what it was all about. Clearly though there’s an audience among native Navajo. Even with its flaws, the lack of other accounts from the Native American perspective will make this book a valuable addition to most libraries. (Nonfiction. 7-11)