The Grass Dancer

The Grass Dancer by Susan Power had me mesmerized from first page to last. I swooped the book up from one of my best readers, a girl who stuck with this 300-plus-page novel and spoke highly of it in her soft-spoken way.

The Grass Dancer's narrative about the Dakota Sioux works in a circle, going backwards and then moving forwards in time so that it ends where it starts, with Harley Wind Soldier. Yet, just as the circle, in many American Indian cultures, is symbolic of the life cycle, the characters in this cyclical narrative change, grow, learn, love, live, die. In fact, it was hard for me, while reading, to imagine that the many characters were merely characters. I kept waiting to find Mercury Thunder working some sinister magic over me or searching for Harley Wind Soldier's grandmother on the moon or wondering what Herod Small War would say about my dreams.

I highly recommend this novel for eighth grade and beyond. It is a beautifully woven piece of literature.