Books with author Mari Sandoz

The Sioux Indians came into my life before I had any preconceived notions about them, or about anyone else. In our family no formal pattern of philosophical or religious thought was thrust upon the children, and I was left free to learn about our Indian friends as I did about the rest of our neighborhood of mixed beliefs, languages and origins-homeseeking immigrant Poles, Czechs, Irish, Dutch, French, Germans, Danes, Swiss, a few Serbs, a Bulgar, a Mohammedan, a negro and a smattering of so-called native Americans, including Texas cowboys. - Mari Sandoz

Young Lance is his father's son when it comes to the daring needed for gaining honors in the war councils of the plains Sioux. Even greater is his seeing medicine. With eyes growing sharper, he watches the warring between tribes, the buffalo hunting, the daily routine—and shows it all in pictures drawn in the dust or on skins with charcoal and color sticks. But catching the story of Sioux society in the 1840s is not for an impetuous and unseasoned youth. Many adventures, sorrows, and hardships must pass before the village sings Lance's new name: Story Catcher, recorder of the history of his people. Rooted in legend, history, and empathetic understanding, The Story Catcher, Sandoz's last novel, won the Levi Strauss Golden Saddleman Award and the Western Writers of America Spur Award.

In a blinding blizzard a schoolbus overturns and a young teacher, her seven pupils, and the driver—a mere boy—are stranded in the open country, miles and miles from the nearest ranchhouse. Thus Mari Sandoz introduces a situation that will stretch the limits of human endurance. The exposed little group is armed with no more than the lunches they started out with and only the clothing required for a normal winter's day. As a killer storm takes hold and the mercury plunges below zero they become desperate. How each character facesthe terrifying prospect of freezing to death is a story that has become a small classic. And because it is based upon fact—the author's niece experienced much the same ordeal in the paralyzing midwestern blizzard of January 1949—it has the ring of undisputed truth.Winter Thunder has been named by the Reader’s Digest as one of the ten best American short novels.