Books like Dovetails in Tall Grass — picked by fans

I love this book’s two freedom fighters: the historical Sarah Grimké and the fictional enslaved woman Handful.

It’s the early 1800s in Charleston, SC. Privileged white girl Sarah bucks cultural expectations for women, while Handful fights the cruel slavery system. Sarah repudiates her upbringing in order to support abolition, and Handful stakes everything in pursuit of freedom, “to leave or die trying.”

I loved learning about the Grimké sisters, giants in the abolition movement, and the West African story-quilt tradition, whereby women tell their lives through the art of needlework. This book was transformative for me; Sarah’s and Handful’s transgressive courage has helped me through difficult times of my own. If they could face their obstacles, then by golly, I can face mine.

I loved this historical work about the real-life story of Ellen Craft, a young slave with a light complexion who escapes from the South with her partner, William, a slave of a darker complexion. The difficult voyage on a boat going north in which Ellen, who is impersonating a young white master traveling with his male slave, must converse with the white men on board as though she were one of them kept me in a state of high anxiety.

I prayed that she would succeed, agonizing over every difficult moment that could have aroused suspicions, internalizing the heroine’s terror and resolve. I loved the gripping prose and psychological insight of this author who has restored the voice of a remarkable woman who played an important role in the abolitionist movement. 

Although I knew that this novel was unlikely to have a happy ending because few women emerge intact after being accused of witchcraft, I couldn’t put this book down. I became attached to the characters, reading on well past midnight to find out whether they would escape a terrible fate.

Women who didn’t conform to the strict code of female behavior in seventeenth-century Norway were all possible targets of the witch hunters. I was filled with admiration for those imprisoned women who held out against demands that they incriminate others and even felt sympathy for those who succumbed to torture to become informers or were cleverly manipulated by promises of leniency.

For me, the plot and subplots were fascinating; all the characters were vivid, and some displayed unbelievable heroism.

I was fascinated by this story of how a courageous young girl abandoned by her parents managed to survive during the Great Depression in rural Michigan. I felt a motherly concern for the heroine who not only confronts people’s reluctance to help a girl from a “trashy” family but also popular prejudices underestimating the potential of young women and consigning them to limited roles in society.

As if this were not enough, she must evade child-trafficking schemes! I loved the dramatic twists in the plot as well as the personal growth the heroine demonstrates as she struggles against formidable odds.

Gary Clayton Anderson is one of the foremost authorities on the complex and complicated history of the U.S. – Dakota War. In his latest book, Massacre in Minnesota, Anderson relies on his knowledge of the conflict and his skill as a historian to create an objective, thorough look at Minnesota’s watershed historical event. Anderson, who’s been writing about the U.S. – Dakota War and its participants since the 1980s, guides readers through the events with expert explanations and a multitude of perspectives. He also shows growth and maturity by revising his language and viewpoint to fit the understanding of contemporary scholarship. Massacre in Minnesota is an easy-to-follow, comprehensive look at a tragedy we’re still trying so hard to understand.    

I loved this book enough to read it twice. In fact, felt compelled to read it twice because of Connell’s amazing portrayal of Custer and dozens of other figures, both American and Native American, both well-known and obscure.

The battle of the Little Bighorn lasted only a few hours but had an amazing impact, and Connell tells the story with remarkable originality.     

The Lance and the Shield is a model biography of a native leader; in this case, one of the most storied figures in American Indian history. Utley immerses the reader in Lakota (Sioux) culture and evokes all the pathos of the enigmatic Sitting Bull’s struggle to preserve the Plains Indian way of life. Utley is the dean of Western Historians, and all his books are well worth reading.

I cannot remember how this book came into my possession. I have always been interested in various ethnic origins, and once I began reading this remarkable book, it was difficult to put down. It follows a small Sioux tribe from 1750 to 1834 when the tribe resisted the influence of the white man.

The book's name translates to "Clear the Way," and it certainly was true to its meaning, as it took all my powers of concentration to "clear the way" and understand the depths that the author Ruth Beebe Hill must have gone to in her research to make this book acceptable to interested readers.

It gives an in-depth understanding of the culture of these proud but violent people and, sadly, how some finally succumbed to the influences that they had so long fought against.   

Zitkala Sa describes her book as “a curiously colored seashell, which is only for those ears that are bent with compassion to hear it.” Images like this stopped me in my tracks. It perfectly captured my experience reading this powerful memoir of Zitkala Sa’s experience as a child on the Yankton Dakota reservation, a student at the Carlisle School for Indians, and later life as an activist.

It isn’t always an easy read, but like holding a colorful seashell to my ear, reading Zitkala Sa’s memoir feels like reaching across a vast distance of time and space to connect with someone whose experience differed from mine. Books like this have become so important to me in these times of division. 

In the Summer of 1932, the orphan Odie O’Banion commits a terrible crime and is forced to flee the terrible institution where he is, in a very real sense, a prisoner. He and three of his young companions steel away in the night and begin to search for a new, better way of life.

This book has everything: an epic tale well told, a heroic journey, a paddle down a wild river, poignant adventure, and the growth of the soul. Think The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Odyssey.

I loved it from the very first page and could not put this book down.