Sacagawea by Lise Erdrich

Sacagawea by Lise Erdrich, illustrated by Julie Buffalohead is an award winning children's biography of the Shoshone woman who acted as interpreter and guide for Lewis and Clark during their famous exploration of the west in 1804. The book received the Carter G. Woodson Award for social science book that depicts ethnicity in the United States as well as being an International Reading Association (IRA) teacher's choice and an International Reading Association (IRA)/Children's Book Council (CBC) children's choice. Eldrich is a member of the Turtle Mountain band of Plains-Ojibway and Buffalohead is of Ponca heritage.

The book details a great deal of factual content concerning the time period and the geography of the area. The story tells of Sacagawea's life from age eleven when she was kidnapped by a Hidatsa raiding party when she was out gathering roots and berries and firewood along the riverbank and the men were out hunting around the year 1800. After a long journey east across the Great Plains with her captors the young Shoshone girl arrived at the earth-lodge villages of the Hidatsa and Mandan people. Here she was given to a Hidatsa household who gave her the name Sacagawea which means bird woman, and taught how to grow food. Life was different with the Hidatsa Indians; they grew food they had plenty to eat during the long cold winters and were able to live in permanent houses.

After almost four years of living with the Hidatsa, Sacagawea was given in marriage to a Frenchman named Charbonneau who was at least twenty years older than her. She was pregnant with her first child when the Corps of Discovery, headed by Lewis and Clark arrived in their village. It was her husband, Charbonneau, who proposed that the expedition hire him as a guide and interpreter. He did not speak Shoshone, but his wife did and Lewis and Clark needed horses from the Shoshone Indians in order to reach the Pacific Ocean. On April 7, 1805 the party set out. The book describes various details and events that occurred along the way and how the relationship between Clark and Sacagawea developed over the course of the journey. It is interesting to note that after the explorers return Pompy, Sacagawea's and Charbonneau's son was given to be raised by Clark in the east.

The artwork provided by Julie Buffalohead is both beautiful and interesting. The book is historically accurate, and though it contains some gaps, the author avoids the mistake of making a smooth narrative by filling in with fiction. At the end of the book there is a map of the expeditions route west to the Pacific Ocean, and their route east during the return. There is also a timeline that greatly facilitates understanding of the order of events. The author includes speculation about Sacagawea's later life of which little is known and distinguishes between what is certain and what probably happened. The book contains a selected bibliography indicating the sources of the information given.