indian girls

Because she has been very ill and weak, River cannot join in the dancing at this year's tribal powwow, she can only watch from the sidelines as her sisters and cousins dance the celebration; but as the drum beats she finds the faith to believe that she will recover and dance again.

Abandoned by her white father, thirteen-year-old Red Dove faces another lean winter with her Lakota family on the Great Plains. Willful and proud, she is presented with a stark choice: leave her people to live in the white world, or stay and watch them starve. Red Dove begins a journey to find her place in the world and discovers that her greatest power comes from within herself.

Twelve-year-old Rosa's excitement over going to the city with her father turns to despair when she realizes he has been forced to sell her into service as a maid, and her life continues on a downward spiral when she becomes pregnant by her abusive master and is thrown out into the streets to live or die as the gods may choose.