WW4BB Presents: A Review of The Flight of Red Bird: The Life of Zitkala-Sa by Doreen Rappaport

The Flight of Red Bird: The Life of Zitkala-Sa by Doreen Rappaport
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a amazing and incredibly inspiring book! I remember when I first bought back when it first came out, I so loved and cherished this book and wanted everyone I knew to read it. It has passed from all hands of family and friends and lovingly found its way back to me again and I thought I should post a review because I have always loved the book so very much.

In 1884 eight year old Gertrude Bonnin was taken from her family on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota and brought to a Quaker-run boarding school in Indiana. Like thousands of other Indian children at the time, she was forced to become"civilized"- to give up her languge, customs, dress, and religious practices. Angry and humiliated at being coerced into renouncing her heritage, and torn between two cultures, she rebelled. Later she harnessed her anger and became on of the most important Native American Reformers of the early twentieth century.

Renaming herself Zitkala-Sa, which means "Red Bird," she became a writer, lecturer, and activist. She devoted her life to making white audiences aware of the injustices done to Native Americans and fought for legislation to better their lives.

In re-creating Zitkala-Sa's life for readers, Doreen Rappaport drew from Zitkala-Sa's own moving and dramatic writings, scoured archives throughout the united states, visited reservations where she lived, spoke with Native American scholars and to those who knew her. Powerful and Memorable, The flight of the Red Bird will inspire every reader who has ever dreamed of making a difference.

I couldn't put this book down when I was reading it and I know you wont be able to either. As a Native American I went through so many ranges of emotion while reading this book but what I felt when I was done was pride. Pride in Red Bird and pride in Natives as a whole that we have come so far, and I know that we can still go farther!

If you haven't read this book please do as it is a definite TBR!

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My own much loved copy

Chronicles, through her own reminiscences, letters, speeches, and stories, the experiences of the Yankton Indian woman whose life spanned the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century.