Hanna’s encounters with women of the nearby Ihanktonwan community are a treat they hint at the whole world beyond a White settler perspective, a world all children deserve to learn about. Park brings new depth to these well-trodden tales, though, as she renders visible both the xenophobia of the town’s White residents, which ranges in expression from microaggressions to full-out assault, and Hanna’s fight to overcome it with empathy and dignity. Fans of the Little House books will find many of the small satisfactions of Laura’s stories-the mouthwatering descriptions of victuals, the attention to smart building construction, the glorious details of pleats and poplins-here in abundance. It’s 1880, and they endure challenges similar to those faced by the Ingallses and so many others: dreary travel through unfamiliar lands, the struggle to protect food stores from nature, and the risky uncertainty of establishing a livelihood in a new place.

Park writes about the Little House books, which she loved as a child, in an author’s note that begins, “I wrote Hanna’s story as an attempt at a painful reconciliation.” Familiar or not with those books, readers will find this one a deeply satisfying story with a resilient, winning protagonist.A “half-Chinese and half-white” girl finds her place in a Little House–inspired fictional settler town.Īfter the death of her Chinese mother, Hanna, an aspiring dressmaker, and her White father seek a fresh start in Dakota Territory. Racism on the frontier is openly acknowledged and examined through Hanna’s experiences and observations, while the Native people (Oceti Sakowin/Lakota) Hanna meets are portrayed with respect and dignity. There are also critical, intentional differences. There are numerous similarities to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books here, many of them captivating. And when most of the other families pull their children out of school in protest after Hanna starts attending, Hanna isn’t sure people will even come to the shop once it opens. Hanna knows her parents had a marriage of love and a true partnership in business, but Papa is worried what people will think. He and Mama owned a dress shop, but because Mama was Chinese many assumed he married her to get free labor. Papa, who is white, doesn’t want Hanna to sew for the shop. Hanna has two strong desires: to get her diploma, and to make dresses for the fabric shop Papa is opening. Now 15, she and Papa have left Los Angeles far behind to start over in the growing frontier town of LaForge, Dakota Territories, in 1880. Published by Clarion/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020

Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park