I am a 8th grade English teacher. I saw the review for this novel in The Horn Book. It was excellent! The plot is straight forward and the tension in the story does not let up until the last page. It is a good book to develop questions and ethical debates with your students. "What would you do" will be in your head as you read the entire book. Questions as to Clay O'Brien's true character will also come up. You also have to decide if Mary Kathleen O'Brien description of her husband is accurate. It is a good "thinking book. The book is a quick read with only 184 pages. The print is medium size as well. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction with a bit of suspense thrown in!

Dakota Trail is one of the best srories I've ever read, and it is writen by Robert Vaughn an excellant writer!!!
It's after the civil war and Dick Hodson finds his hometown without men to take the cattle north, so he takes to the trail with a party of raw greenhorn children. They soon find out a gang of evil men are waiting for them. Soon these untried children will become men if they survive. When Vaughn writes there is never a dull page.

I have an original copy of this classic. Not a photo-copy. NOT much else of Americana as spectacular.

With _Reflections on the Academic Life in North Dakota_, Walter Ellis has written a book that all men will want to read and that all women should read. Written from Ellis' own male perspective, _Reflections_ traces the decline and fall of a romantic relationship between two people in the academic profession that seemed to hold great promise, but which really never had a chance. At times hilarious, but ultimately tragic, Reflections is a skillful blend of humor and heartache, written in an engrossing style that is easy to read and sprinkled with clever, yet realistic, dialogue and the wry musings of a very intelligent author.

The story is about David London, a forty-nine year old university history professor, and Tracey Gillespie, his much younger girlfriend, a beautiful graduate student who studies archaeology at another university. From the opening chapters it is clear that the two have a volatile relationship, one which alternates between passionate love-making and trivial disagreements that have a way of simmering until they boil over into curse-laden tirades. David thinks he goes the extra mile to accommodate Tracey's every wish and need. But Tracey thinks that David can do nothing right, is insensitive to her feelings and, worse still, can't even feed her cats properly! Yet some thing or things keeps them together-the fulfillment of his fantasies of a young and dazzlingly beautiful student, her emotionally scarred need for the wisdom, stability, and security of the older professor (or father) type?

Something's got to give and the two decide to take a trip together in a tour group to the Middle East to see and experience the wonders of ancient Israel and Jordan. Surely this will solve all their problems-of course not-but it is always the two people in the relationship who need to see this the most who do not see this. The tour might just as well have been on a rollercoaster track as on the dirt roads of Petra as the trip makes things only worse for the ill-suited lovers. Further complicating matters are the other members of the tour group, a motley crew who range from the saintly Alexandra, an older woman to whom David increasingly finds himself drawn for comfort and wisdom, to the down to earth Joel and his wife, Julie, a thirty-something couple who quickly become David's drinking buddies, to the wretched Berta, a loud, bossy, bloated epitome of the ugly American tourist, to the competent, if somewhat tacky, Yuri, the Israeli tour guide who must cater to the varied and often unreasonable demands of the members of the tour group. These supporting characters are not just window dressing or, worse still, "types," but fully developed human beings who are also skillfully weaved into the plot as essential players in this tragic-comedy.

Ellis doesn't tell us what should be in a relationship, just what all too often is (for many of us, at any rate). David and Tracey are two people, intellectually and emotionally incompatible, yet drawn to each other by physical passion and their own fantasies of what they think they want out of a relationship and out of life, fantasies that end up smashed by the steel hammer of reality. But as the song says, "you can't always get what you want, but if you try some time, you just might find, you'll get what you need." For if there is any lesson in Ellis' tale, it comes from the character of Alexandra, who had a long, stable relationship with a husband who was compatible with her in a real way, and not just some figment of her fantasies. One can only hope that the same readers who mutter to themselves, "how true, how true," or, "been there, done that," when reading Ellis' book (and I'm sure there will be many, for this reviewer is among them) also take the lesson to heart and break the cycle of their own failed relationships. Even if they do not, though, at least readers of Walter Ellis' _Reflections on the Academic Life in North Dakota_ will have had a few laughs, a little truth in art, and a darned good read.

The Roadside History of South Dakota is an entertaining, well-written book. At first I read this book as an armchair traveler and enjoyed anecdotes that gave the flavor and essence of South Dakota. Then I drove through the state. The book brought to life the places we passed on the way, and I was able to entertain my children with stories of the people who lived there. Driving roads like I90 became a historical and cultural experience. I am looking forward to reading other books in the Roadside History series.

EACH CHAPTER IS IT'S OWN STORY CLEVERLY LEADING YOU TO THE NEXT TO SEE WHERE IT LEADS AND WHAT HAPPENS TO ALL THE CHARACTERS. IT WAS VERY HARD TO PUT DOWN AND NOT HARD TO GET BACK TO AS YOU LOOKED FORWARD TO LEARNING MORE ABOUT BRONC AND WISPAH. VERY WELL WRITTEN BY AN EXCELLENT AUTHOR WHO OBVIOUSLY DID A GOOD DEAL OF RESEARCH ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PEOPLE LIVING IN NORTH AMERICA IN THE TWENTIES AND THIRTIES.. I SHALL RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND I AM CONFIDENT THEY WILL ALL ENJOY IT AS I DID... GREAT WRITING. DAVID G. FULLER

I moved to Sioux Falls in May, 1994 and had no idea of the fascinating history of the city and surrounding area.

I came across this book at the library, and started reading it and looking through the pictures. I was surprised at the amount of material that was in this book, and it made for a thoroughly involving trip down yesteryear, looking at the old pictures and trying to match them up with what is now present.

I also came to realize what beautiful architecture much of Sioux Falls used to have, and I've come to bemoan in part what has happened to most of the downtown area. I would never have known the architectual heritage that Sioux Falls lost had I not seen this book. It also has made me thankful for the precious little bits that survive today.

It's a pity that this book went out of print. It is probably the single best book that ever was, and likely ever will be, for a history of Sioux Falls.

I adored this book, because I left Sioux Falls, my birthplace, when I was only one and a half. When I read this book, I learned so much about where I was from and it helped me choose where I am going to visit when I go with my family on a trip all over South Dakota! This book is for all South Dakotans!

Winter Counts were the historical calendars of the Sioux Nation. An historian, appointed by the tribe, drew one pictograph on a buffalo or deer skin at the end of each winter season. The Big Missouri Winter Count is housed in the Sioux Museum in Rapid City, South Dakota and is one of the best preserved of all these Native American calendars. This winter count calendar commemorates 131 years (1796 to 1926) in the lives of the Sioux bands who lived along the Missouri River, spanning a century which brought devastating changes for them. Sioux Winter Count: A 131-year Calendar Of Events is a superbly produced, informative study of that calendar and will prove to be of immense interest to students of Native American culture in general, and the Sioux Nation in particular.