Hanna rarely goes out when her father does. She is not accepted in the culture around her. It is the time of the pioneer and the western frontier, a time when Americans were trying to settle the prairie. But Hanna does not look like those around her. Though her father is an American of European descent, her mother was from Asia (half-Chinese and half-Korean). Hanna wants so badly to go to school and get an education like her mother wanted her to before she died. However, no one in the town seems to want Hanna at the school. This is a hard but sweet book to read about the prejudices that come from people that look different than us. It makes me cringe to hear the words people said to her, but I have no doubt they are words many people heard over the years. It also reminds me of the importance of education and how it was denied to so many over the years. Linda Sue Park wrote this as a tribute to one of her favorite author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, because she wanted to place herself in a time and place like Little House on the Prairie. I grew up on those stories and started reading them at the age of six. It's hard to know that there are some imperfections in those books which the author points out at the end. However, we can still hope that even with all the prejudice, people are able to rise above their circumstances like some of Hanna's friends.
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