Miranda's Last Stand

Children's Literature - Jackie Hechtkopf

Miranda lives at Fort Lincoln where Mama works as a laundress. In her spare time, Mama paints pictures of the soldiers. Her portraits are so beautiful that they draw the attention of Bill Cody, who asks Mama to paint posters and a backdrop for his Wild West Show. Miranda and her mother spend an exciting summer traveling with the show. For the first time, Miranda makes friends with children her own age. But the other children are Sioux Indians and Mama can't forgive the Sioux for killing her husband at the Battle of Little Big Horn. When Sitting Bull joins the show, Mama is furious. Miranda tries to teach Mama that the Sioux are not evil, but she finally realizes that her mother cannot "climb out of herself." Miranda's strong and honestly childlike voice carries this mother-daughter story of the American West. As an added bonus, readers get a glimpse of Annie Oakley. This is a charming book that portrays Native Americans empathetically in an eminently entertaining format. Teachers should consider this one for a classroom read-aloud.

Library Journal

Gr 4-7-After her mother is hired by Buffalo Bill Cody to paint backdrops for his Wild West Show, Miranda encounters some Indian children whom she gradually realizes are the relatives of the men who killed her father in the Battle of Little Big Horn. As an account of one girl's gradual coming to terms with the loss of her father and understanding the plight of the Sioux, the novel has merit. Unfortunately, it completely ignores the painful and harsh ways in which they were exploited. Most of the Indian children are portrayed with good English skills, but their mother speaks stereotypical pidgin diction. Sitting Bull's interpreted speech has tremendous dignity and power, and seems strangely at odds with the rest of the narrative in mood. The characters lack those foibles and quirks that help them to spring to life and walk off the page, and the reverence readers are to feel for Sitting Bull distances them rather than pulls them into the tragedy of a great leader working a dog-and-pony show to entertain the very people he had fought for his own country. It is a tightrope to walk between telling a good story with immediacy and being completely respectful of people who once lived public lives. Unfortunately, Whelan fails to engage readers completely on either level.-Carol A. Edwards, Sonoma County Library, Santa Rosa, CA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.