Bleeker, Sonia; Sasaki, Kisa, illus. (1962). "The Sioux Indians: Hunters and Warriors of the Plains." New York, NY: William Morrow & Company. (Middle school). This book focuses on the life of the Sioux from 1780 through the 1870s. Religion, buffalo hunting, raids, games, the Sun Dance, and the end of the traditional way of life are described.  
 
Brooks, Barbara (1989). "The Sioux." Vero Beach, FL: Rourke Publications, Inc. (Elementary) This short history of the Sioux Indians features one chapter on the Sioux today. Includes colorful drawings, archival and contemporary photographs, and a list of important dates in Sioux history.
 
Brown, Dee. Erlich, Amy, adapter (1993). "Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West." New York: NY. Henry Holt & Co. (Middle school/Secondary). The story (from and Indian perspec-tive) of the defeat and dispossession of the Western tribes, 1860–1890, ending with the Battle of Wounded Knee.  
 
Campbell, M.; Tate, D.; and Twofeathers, S., illus. (1992). "People of the Buffalo: How the Plains Indians Lived." Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books. (Elementary) A simple yet very informative reference on Plains Indian life before and during contact with white settlers. Topics covered include language, beliefs and ceremonies, shelter, family, food, clothing, and warfare.  
 
Clark, Ann Nolan; Beatty, Willard W., ed; Standing Soldier, Andrew, illus. (1992). "There Are Still Buffalo." Santa Fe, NM: Ancient City Press. (Early elementary) A bilingual Sioux/English text and its accompanying illustrations follow the stages of a male buffalo’s life, stressing harmony with nature and death as part of nature. An afterword provides information on the Lakota alphabet and on the development of written Lakota.
 
Clark, Robert A., ed. (1988). "The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse." Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. (Secondary) This book presents three first-hand accounts surrounding the killing of Oglala Sioux Chief Crazy Horse in 1877.  
 
Deloria, Ella Cara (1998). "Speaking of Indians." Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. (Secondary). Written in 1944, Deloria follows general considerations about American Indians with a description of the traditional life of the author’s own Sioux community. She concludes that European culture forced such rapid economic, social, environmental, and religious changes that American Indian society could not cope.  
 
Gilmore, Melvin; Schellback, Louis, illus. (1987). "Prairie Smoke." St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press. (Secondary) Originally intended to be an introduction to the ecology and culture of the Plains, this book (first published in 1927) features traditional tales about plants, animals, and people interwoven with discussions of such topics as how Indians made paints and the meaning of personal names in Plains Indian society.  
 
Sneve, Virginia D., Himler, Ronald, illus. (1993). "The Sioux." New York, NY: Holiday House. (Elementary). This book explains the migration of the Sioux from Minnesota to the Plains in the 1700s and the development of their traditional life and culture.
 
Yue, Charlotte and David (1984). "The Tipi: A Center of Native American Life." New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. (Elementary/Secondary) Clearly written book describing tipi history, construction, and significance in American Indian life. Includes much information on Plains Indian life.
 
Native Views  
 
Armstrong, Virginia Irving (1971). "I Have Spoken: American History Through the Voices of the Indians." Athens, OH: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press. (Secondary) Selected speeches by Indian leaders reflect the developments in Indian-white relationships since the seventeenth century.
 
Deloria, Ella C. (1988). "Waterlily." Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. (Secondary) This novel, written by Yankton Sioux ethnologist Deloria takes protagonist Waterlily, a Dakota, through the everyday and the extraordinary events of a Sioux woman’s life. Fiction.
 
Fools Crow, Frank (1979). "Fools Crow: Wisdom and Power." [Recorded by] Thomas E. Mails. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. (Secondary) Based on interviews conducted in the 1970s. The holy man tells about his life from early reservation days when the Sioux were learning to farm, to later times when alcoholism, the cash economy, and World War II were fast eroding the old customs.
 
Standing Bear, Luther (1975). "My people, the Sioux." Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. (Secondary) Autobiographical retelling of a Lakota born in the 1860s who devoted his later years to the Indian rights movement of the 1920s and ‘30s. Standing Bear recounts his experiences as the first in his class at Carlisle Indian School, a witness to the Ghost Dance uprising from the Pine Ridge Reser-vation, and a member of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Eurpoean Tour.
 
Penman, Sarah, ed,. (2000). "Honor the Grandmothers: Dakota and Lakota Women Tell Their Stories." St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press. (Middle school) Four elderwomen tell of their lives in this uncompromising antidote to the lies children are taught about the “savage Sioux.”
 
Wood, Ted and Hawk, Wanbli Numpa Afraid of (1992). "A Boy Becomes a Man at Wounded Knee." New York, NY: Walker. (Elementary). A first-person account from nine-year-old Lakota Wanbli Numpa (Afraid of Hawk) who joined more than 200 people on a reenactment of the journey made by Chief Big Foot and the Lakota from the Cheyenne River to the site of the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890.  
 
Winter Counts  
 
Hook, Jason (1989). "Crazy Horse: Sacred Warrior of the Sioux." Dorset, England: Firebird Books. (Middle school/Secondary) This biography of Oglala chief Crazy Horse contains information about the Sioux, such as their dependence on the buffalo, their historic calendar known as the “winter counts,” and the role of warfare.
 
Sandoz, Mari (1963). "The Story Catcher." Philadelphia, PA: University of Nebraska Press. (Secondary) This coming-of-age story set in the Great Plains in the mid-1800s follows the adventures of a young Oglala Sioux named Lone Lance, who becomes a recorder of his people’s history through paintings on hides. Fiction.
 
Lakota Biographies
 
Bruchac, Joseph; Nelson, S.D., illus. (2000). "Crazy Horse’s Vision." New York: Lee & Low Books. (Early elementary) Without romanticism, Bruchac tells the story of Crazy Horse’s childhood and the vision that was to direct his adult life. Full-color paintings by Lakota artist S.D. Nelson.
 
Bruchac, Joseph; Baviera, Rocco, illus. (1998). "A Boy Called Slow: the True Story of Sitting Bull." New York, NY: Putnam. (Early elementary). This picture-book biography recounts the childhood of a boy named Slow, who grew up in the 1830s and was later known as Sitting Bull, the great Lakota chief.
 
Sneve, Virginia D.H. (1975); Hunt, Jane N., ed; Zephier, Loren, illus. "They Led a Nation." Sioux Falls, SD: Brevet Press, Inc. (Elementary/Secondary). Brief biographies of twenty Sioux leaders, including Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Spotted Tail. The book includes a chronology of events beginning with the Pontiac War of 1763, and ending with the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890.
 
Traditional Stories
 
Big Crow, Moses Nelson (1987). "A Legend from Crazy Horse Clan." Chamberlain, SD: Tipi Press. (Elementary) Big Crow tells the story of how Tashia Gnupa (Meadowlark), a human child, joins the Buffalo Nation and later returns home to become the mother of warriors.  
 
Goble, Paul; Gobel, Paul, illus. (1984). "Buffalo Woman." New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. (Elementary) This Plains legend explains how buffalo and people are related, and the importance of the buffalo as a source of life.  
 
Monroe, Jean Guard; Williamson, R. A.; Sturat, Edgar, illus. (1987). "They Dance in the Sky: Native American Star Myths." Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. (Middle School/Secondary) This book is a well-documented presentation of American Indian star stories. It also explains that the stories are meant to be read aloud, since a certain quality is lost when an oral text is set down in print.  
 
Nelson, S.D. (2003). "The Star People: A Lakota Story." New York: Harry N. Abrams. (Early elementary) The illustrations in this book are inspired by the Plains Indian ledger-book art of the late 1800s and tell the story of lost girl and boy who are guided to safety by the appearance of their grandmother’s spirit.
 
Nelson, S.D.; Nelson, S.D., illus. (1999). "Gift Horse: A Lakota Story." Harry N. Abrams. Nelson’s illustrations bring to life the story, told in the first person, of his great-great-grandfather’s transition from boy to man.  
 
Red Shirt, Delphine (2002). "Turtle Lung Woman’s Granddaughter." Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. (Secondary) The author delicately weaves the life stories of her mother and great-grand-mother into a continuous narrative of the moving, epic saga of Lakota women from traditional times to the present.
 
Standing Bear, Luther (1988), "Stories of the Sioux." Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. (Elementary) Twenty stories told by Standing Bear as he learned them from his elders. “These stories were not told,” Standing Bear says, “with the idea of forcing the children to learn, but for pleasure, and they were enjoyed by young and old alike.”
 
Yellow Robe; Pinkney, Jerry, illus., (1979). "Tonweya and the Eagles and Other Lakota Tales." New York, NY: Dial Books for Young Readers. (Middle School) A collection of traditional Lakota legends, as told by the author’s father. Includes illustrations, foreword, glossary, and Lakota pronunciation guide.