Killers of the Flower Moon: Adapted for Young Readers: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

New Yorker writer David Grann has skillfully adapted his chilling nonfiction bestseller Killers of the Flower Moon for young readers. Grann examines this ghastly episode of U.S. history in an authentic, accessible style that will hook teens with the intrigue of fiction while simultaneously enlightening them with the facts.

Two stories converge as Grann adeptly lays out the details of a series of gruesome murders committed against members of the Osage Nation in the 1920s. He focuses on the family of Mollie Burkhart: her older sister was shot to death, her mother died suspiciously not long after and Mollie's younger sister was killed in a bombing. When it became clear the murders were connected and continuing, the Bureau of Investigation was called in to take over the case. Tom White, a former Texas Ranger, led the investigation team in Oklahoma, while J. Edgar Hoover used one of the bureau's first major homicide cases to secure his position as the director of what would become the FBI.

There is no shortage of jaw-dropping information in Killers of the Flower Moon. Grann entices younger readers with a mystery worthy of fiction and grips them with a thriller. In the preface, Osage tribal member Dennis McAuliffe Jr. says, "Every time this history is learned, justice is served, and the victims... are honored." Grann has ensured that justice will indeed be served many times over. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

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