Washaka: The Bear Dreamer (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780972900249)

It was the edge of winter 2005 and I was casting about looking for a new story idea. I like to write in coffee shops and was sitting near a window scribbling in a notebook when an Indian man about my age came to my table and asked if I was a writer. I told him I was. He introduced himself as Leon Hale and asked if he could sit and tell me a story. We shook hands, and he began. Leon told me about a dream he has had for many years. It is always the same dream; full of rich detail, sounds, smells, and sights. In the dream, he is a young Lakota boy living in a tipi village in the early 1800s just as the huge westward migration of Europeans into Indian country was beginning. Leon said that sometimes when he wakes up and finds himself a grown man living in a trailer house, he is disoriented and confused. Within minutes, I knew I would write his story.Over the next year we recorded Leon's dream and I went to work writing the story, adding detail and, in essence, entering a new world. The relationship between Little Chief and a white boy he named Mato Ska took shape and came alive.

Author: Patricia Jamie Lee
ISBN-10: 0972900241
ISBN-13: 9780972900249
Publisher: Many Kites Press
Language: English
Published: 11/01/2006
Pages: 238
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.63lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.54w x 0.51d

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 5.3
Point Value: 10
Interest Level: Middle Grade
Quiz #/Name: 115820 / Washaka the Bear Dreamer: A Lakota Story Based on Leon Hale's Dream

Award: Benjamin Franklin Award - Winner

Review Citation(s):
Foreword 07/01/2006 pg. 48
Kliatt 09/01/2006 pg. 24
Voice of Youth Advocates 08/01/2007 pg. 258 - Recommended - Readable