Prairie Lotus

"Linda Sue Park’s heritage is Korean American. The heroine of Prairie Lotus , Hanna, is the child of a Korean Chinese immigrant woman and a white American man. This book takes place in 1880, and it is inspired by The Little House on the Prairie books. What she says in her author’s note is that she loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books when she was a kid. She did all kinds of mental gymnastics to try to insert herself in the narrative, because she wanted Laura to be her best friend. Essentially, that’s what this book is: Laura Ingalls Wilder fan fiction in which Hanna becomes best friends with the Laura character who is called Bess. Wilder experts will know that Elizabeth was Laura’s middle name and that she was actually called Bess for a lot of her life. I love that Hanna’s father is actually a character in the books, who readers will recognise as Mr. Edwards. Linda Sue Park has taken a character from the books and given him this fictional daughter. The reason Prairie Lotus works is because it isn’t a straightforward celebration of Wilder, but carefully interrogates the issues that come up in those books: colonialism and racial prejudice and manifest destiny and all the uncomfortable implications that has, and how the American government dispossessed the Native Americans. This book really looks into that. At the same time, it appreciates the adventure and the characters of the books that Wilder has given us. The author actually spent time on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, learning some of the Lakota language and their ways which she incorporated into the book, so it’s very respectful. And then there’s also prejudice against this young character who doesn’t fit in because she is of Asian heritage, in this white settlers’ town. Ultimately, it’s a book with a happy ending, but there is a lot of introspection and adventure along the way before we get there."