Do Drums Beat There

by Doe Tabor

The story of Ritta Baker, a young Lakota woman, who witnesses the murder of her traditional grandmother. Frightened for her own life, Ritta leaves the violence of the Reservation. During a thunderstorm, a strange, colorful school bus appears through the South Dakota rain. She hitches a ride and is befriended by Patch, a three-legged dog, and four young people seeing America through the purple haze of marijuana smoke. Her journey leads her to the Red Power Movement that occupies Alcatraz Island, and a new understanding of what it means to be an Indian and a woman.

238 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2000

Reviews

[Victoria M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book a few years ago and it stuck with me as few books do. The characters are strong and memorable, the writing is elegant, and the plot is solid. I got onto Goodreads today to see if the author has written any more books. Sad to see that she hasn’t.

[Jackie]

I found this one at a second hand store and was intrigued to read about a young woman’s life as a Native American – “Ritta’s journey from the reservation to the red power movement and a new understanding of what it means to be a woman and an Indian.” At the time the book was published (2000), the author was living in Oregon and studying at the UofO, plus the book was autographed. Although the book provided a unique perspective of a young woman during that time period and having different experiences than I have ever had in my life, the book was wrought with grammar errors, misspellings, and one sentence was not even complete, it ended with “the .”. On one page, the author had actually crossed out two names and wrote over them the name that was supposed to be there. It kind of left a bad taste in my mouth, because I don’t like the writing to disturb the story when it is filled with potholes of misspellings and grammatical errors; especially during the era of computers with spell check.