Other editions of book Hard Face Moon

Hides Inside is thirteen winters—old enough to yearn to be a warrior. His brother, Standing Tall, has given him the first lesson, “A Cheyenne does not fight his own people.” Not even when other boys taunt him because he cannot speak.On a dim night during the season of the hard face moon, Hides Inside witnesses the unprovoked attack on the Cheyenne that came to be known as the Sand Creek Massacre. His determination to join a warrior society is hardened, but will he follow Standing Tall in the ways of peace?

On November 29, 1864, a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho encamped along Sand Creek in the southeastern Colorado Territory was attacked by Colorado Territory militia under the command of Colonel John Chivington. An estimated 150 to 200 Native Americans were killed, nearly all of them elderly men, women, and children. Nancy Oswald, author of the acclaimed young adult novel Nothing Here But Stones, uses the horrific events at Sand Creek as a shattering climax for the story of Hides Inside, a young Cheyenne unable to speak and struggling to gain acceptance as he grows to manhood and seeks to become a warrior. "Hard Face Moon is a heartrending story of broken promises, close to the earth and sky and to the heart of the Cheyenne people. It is an important look at one of the most shameful events in the history of the American West." Mary Peace Finley Author of the Santa Fe Trail Trilogy: Soaring Eagle, White Grizzly, and Meadow Lark "Hard Face Moon is an exciting and enlightening read for ages 10 and up. Through the eyes of a 13- year-old Cheyenne boy and his friends, Nancy Oswald tells the sorrowful story of the Sand Creek Massacre." Patrick Mendoza, Storyteller/Singer Author of Song of Sorrow: the Massacre at Sand Creek