🌟 The Night Watchman by Lousie Erdrich

I am so glad that someone in my book club suggested we read the winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize (and she suggested that BEFORE we knew the winner.) I probably would not have read this because I have never finished a Louise Erdrich novel. Now I can't figure out why I did not!  This book was beautiful. I loved the characters, especially Patrice and Thomas, of course. They were so real.  And actually, Thomas is based on Erdrich's grandfather, who accomplished just what Thomas does in this book. And under some very similar circumstances. After I read the book, I went online searching for interviews with the author and learned so much about her and her quest to help indigenous people.  She is of Cherokee descent.

I learned so much from this book  (so much that upsets me, of course), and learned about the culture, beliefs and way of life of a people that I know very little about.  I reflected a lot on the Social Studies curriculum that I am involved with, and how Grade 4 teachers barely scratch the surface when teaching about NY State Native Americans.  And they rarely take the conversation into the present tense.  I discussed this with my fellow consultants, who are doing so much to make the curriculum culturally responsive.

Here is Amazon's summary of the book, so you'll know what it's about:  

Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.