A poignant though too brief memoir by a prominent Native American author of young-adult fiction. Sneve (The Sioux, 1993, etc.) offers vignettes from the lives of her female ancestors. Flora Driving Hawk, whom the author knew as ``Unci,'' was small in size but nevertheless a strong-willed and determined woman. An Indian and a devout Christian, she was equally comfortable telling her children and grandchildren stories from her tribe's oral tradition and humming her favorite hymns. She was the granddaughter of High Bear, a chief who fought Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn. ``Kunsi,'' Sneve's great-grandmother, was a Ponca who married into the Sioux nation and became conversant with the traditions of each tribe. Her husband, a Santee Sioux, was exiled from his native Minnesota to South Dakota in the aftermath of the Great Sioux Uprising of 1862. Sneve relates this story, and many others from the history of the Ponca and the Sioux, in a stream-of-consciousness manner that reflects the style of Native American storytelling. Many myths from the oral tradition are included, among them the tale of White Buffalo Calf Woman, who gave the Sioux their sacred pipe. The author also gives details of the tribes' folkways: food, the role of women, the winter count by which they kept track of the years. Interwoven with the portraits of these remarkable women and their people is the biography of Sneve herself, who used information gathered from them as source material for many of her books. She completes the family circle by closing with the stories of her mother, who grew up on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, and of her own life. A genealogical table clarifies the relationships, and historical family photographs add to the book's intimacy. A heartfelt account of Indian history and tradition by a masterful storyteller.
Pub Date: May 31, 1995
ISBN: 0-8032-4226-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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