This is not an ordinary book: it's a BookCrossing book! BookCrossing books are world travelers - they like to have adventures and make new friends...and every once in a while they even write home to say what they've been doing.

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YA biography: subtitled "Great Sioux Chief"; illustrated by David Rickman. Includes a timeline of highlights in the life of Sitting Bull.

This is the flip side to the pioneering sagas of the American West: the land the settlers were moving into wasn't actually empty or uninhabited, it was just being used in a way that most of the people coming into the territory didn't understand. Not to take away anything from the struggles of those people who "tamed" the land (and whose legacy still feeds us all), but the Indian Wars happened for a reason, and it wasn't just because of some uncontrollable "savages": the native people had their land and lifestyle taken away, and they were repeatedly lied to and betrayed by the US government.

On the other hand, even without the settlers, the influx of trappers and hunters killing off the buffalo, beaver, etc. for sport and for the use of folks "back East" was upsetting the ecosystem of the Great Plains anyway (even more so when they started shooting the buffalo from trains and leaving them there to rot). I suspect the Lakota and other tribes would have had a lot of trouble with those changes even if the homesteading farmers hadn't wanted their land. And then there were the mineral deposits, which tended to mess up everything...

This one came from one of the Niu Valley garage sales.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017: left behind the store, on Auahi Street. (Larger photo here.)

Released for Secretariat's You're Such an Animal challenge.

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I'm so glad you've found this book!

Please take a moment to make a journal entry and let this book's previous readers know that it's safe with you.

How and where did you find the book? What did you think of it? What are you going to do with it next?

It's now your book, for you to do with as you please: keep it, pass it to a friend, or maybe even leave it where someone else can find it!

If you've ever wondered where your books go after they leave your hands, join BookCrossing and you may find out: you'll be able to follow the further adventures of your books as new readers make journal entries - sometimes from surprisingly far-flung locations.

(Think of it like Where's George for books: a little like geocaching or a treasure hunt - you can follow a registered book's journey every time someone makes a new entry. Some BookCrossers even leave books *in* geocaches!)

BookCrossing: making the whole world a library!