Linda Sue Park, the award winning author of A Single Shard, A Long Walk to Water, and Project Mulberry brings middle grade readers Prairie Lotus — a deeply moving work of historical fiction set on the colonized prairie in 1870. The resemblance to the Ingalls-Wilder series is not coincidental. In the back matter, Parks details that the Little House series inspired the book.

Like the Ingalls-Wilder series, Prairie Lotus is set in the Dakota Territory in the town of La Forge. Reminiscent of the Little House books, Prairie Lotus chronicles the changing landscape, emerging townships, and small town relationships. When I read Miss Walters’  lines (the one-room schoolhouse teacher and a central character in the book), I literally heard them in the voice of teacher Miss Beadle from the Little House television series. In the back matter, Parks describes how she based characters loosely on some of the prototypes in the Ingalls-Wilder books (remember annoying Nellie Oleson? Yep. She’s there). Reading these parts of the book took me right back to my 10 year old, 1973 self and in that way, Prairie Lotus was like meeting an old friend. It explains how I read the book in  3 days (and stayed up past midnight to finish).

But the book departs from its inspiration in important ways. In this Q&A with the author, Parks describes how Prairie Lotus reclaims the Little House narrative by “writing in” a character that resembles herself. In this way, Parks took a book that was a window and turns it into a mirror. This powerful move is about more than seeing herself in a beloved book. It is also about reclaiming history by undoing the erasure of BIPOC people in historical narratives. The author explains that while there were not Korean settlers during this period, there were thousands of Chinese immigrants, many of them living in settlements like La Forge. Parks makes Hanna “half/half” — half Chinese and half White but includes that Hanna’s mother was also “half/half” — half Korean and half Chinese.

In addition to recognizable historical context (also detailed in the back matter), Prairie Lotus engages with entrenched racism, White supremacy, and the systemic discrimination of the Chinese during this period. Parks makes Hanna 14 years old — old enough to notice racism and name microagression she endures as the only Chinese person in La Forge. Through Hanna’s commentary, interior monologues, and even conflicts with her White father, Parks offers ample material for discussions on race and racism with students.

A disappointing feature of the book is the mostly unchallenged narrative of settler colonialism. Perhaps in an effort to maintain the style of the Little House books, Park’s prose subtly captures the tone of manifest destiny. “Rain had rinsed the gray and beige plains, leaving behind a translucence of green that was growing denser every day.” You can almost imagine miles and miles of open prairies and empty land. But it wasn’t empty. It was inhabited. It was stolen. And this is where the book gets complicated. While main character Hanna resists the racist treatment of the Indigenous people she meets in the book (the first chapter includes one of these encounters), the attention to Indigenous lives is peripheral at best. The back matter explains some of Park’s choices and research, and I would have thought all was well and good had I not read this Twitter strand by Debbie Reece and this blog post by Indigo’s Bookshelf. These reviews don’t entirely change my mind about the value of the book, but they do raise important questions. What do we make of a book like Prairie Lotus that excavates a lost history but mostly ignores (or at least sidelines) Indigenous history?

Also, I can’t resist the opportunity to recommend The Birchbark Series. If you want a counterstory to Little House on the Prairie, first stop should be Louise Erdrich.

Prairie Lotus would be an excellent compliment to 4th or 5th grade social studies unit on settler colonialism (sadly still called “westward expansion” in elementary social studies textbooks). There is a scene at the end of the book that includes a sexual attack. It is not explicit but it is something I would want to prepare my students for. Because it is pivotal to the end of the book, it is not something that could be glossed over, so my recommendation is that you read it first and decide how to frame it.