Narrated by a smart, clear-sighted protagonist, Prairie Lotus is a richly layered work of historical fiction set in a landscape that will be familiar to Little House on the Prairie readers.
After her Chinese Korean mother's death, 14-year-old Hanna and her white father make their way east from California, landing in 1880 in LaForge, a frontier town in the Dakota Territory. Their plan is to open a dry-goods or tailoring business, but first they have to take the measure of LaForge. Fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books should appreciate Hanna's homesteading chores and similar details, but Prairie Lotus is more than a simple spin-off of a beloved classic. Hanna is a character firmly entrenched in her time who also confronts the inherent racism and sexism of the 19th-century West. As one can expect from Newbery Medal-winner Linda Sue Park (A Single Shard), Prairie Lotus's gorgeous, fluid storytelling carries readers along swiftly to a satisfying conclusion. --Emilie Coulter