Stone Heart: A Novel of Sacajawea

This slim novel, brilliantly conceived and beautifully executed, provides a totally new look at Sacagawea, the Shoshoni woman who accompanied the Lewis and Clark Expedition for a large portion of their journey.

Told from her viewpoint, in stark and simple language, the story unfolds of a young woman whose life was a series of partings – stolen as a child from her family, traded to a man twice her age as wife, mother of an infant son born scant weeks before she was again uprooted from her adopted Mandan home to trek to the shores of an unimagined ocean in the company of men whose goals and culture were utterly alien to her. By juxtaposing Sacagawea’s observations with excerpts from the journals of Lewis and Clark, the reader is given show more a deeper understanding of the chasm that separated the explorers from the peoples they met.

Glancy cleaves to historical accuracy whenever possible, stripping away much of the mythos surrounding the historical Sacagawea, yet creates a living and memorable, if fictionalized, character in its place.

Well worth a read. show less

Diane Glancy's Stoneheart is a short, poetic imagining of Sacajewea's experience on the trip with Lewis and Clark. Glancy juxtaposes the words and descriptions of Lewis and Clark's actual journals with her text and the combination is very effective, quite moving and even convincing. I picked it up for work reasons, but anyone who is a Lewis and Clark afficionado should like it. **** and almost 1/2 (it's just a little too slight).

Beautifully juxtapositioning the imagined voice of young 16 year old Shoshoni Indian Sacajawea with the actual written journal entries of Lewis and Clark, the author paints a beautiful depiction of the expedition.

Balancing the pragmatic statements of Lewis and Clark with the heartfelt observations of Sacajawea, this book is a masterpiece. Adding the voice of Sacajawea to the thoroughly detailed descriptions provides a well-rounded snap shot of American history.

While the author took liberties imagining the thoughts and feelings of Sacajawea, still, this book is a credible documentation of the trails and travails of crossing a wilderness of mountains, raging rivers, biting rattlesnakes, fearsome bison, rain that soaked for weeks and food show more that at times consisted of dogs purchased from the Indians.

The mere fact that they lived to tell about it is a marvel in and of itself.

This is a marvelously poetic book that leaves the reader in awe of the bravery and courage of the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Highly recommended. show less

Fictionalized diary of Sacajawea set along side excerpts of Lewis and Clark's expedition notes. While an interesting choice in writing style, it ultimately made reading a chore. The story has potential -- Sacajawea returns to her homeland, visits the ocean, raises her infant son while travelling on a long journey -- but is written in a format that reads much like the notes of Lewis and Clark, at times painfully dry.

Sacajawea is legendary Shodshoni native Smerican who accompanied Lewis and Clarke over the West