The Night Birds

by Thomas Maltman

The intertwining story of three generations of German immigrants to the Midwest—their clashes with slaveholders, the Dakota uprising and its aftermath—is seen through the eyes of young Asa Senger, named for an uncle killed by an Indian friend. It is the unexpected appearance of Asa’s aunt Hazel, institutionalized since shortly after the mass hangings of thirty-eight Dakota warriors in Mankato in 1862, that reveals to him that the past is as close as his own heartbeat.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Book Club, Native American, Westerns, Literary Fiction

304 pages, Hardcover, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

I am the oldest of twenty-six cousins and the child of an Air Force pilot. Our family lived everywhere from Lubbock, Texas to Stuttgart Air Force Base in Germany. I learned to love travel and love the stories of these places, their history and lore. These loves would serve me well when it came time to write a novel.

I am married to a Lutheran pastor and live in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. I have three young daughters, who are the center of my life. I am fortunate to be teaching composition and creative writing at Normandale Community College.

Reviews

[Diane Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you feel the need to jump into a time machine and travel back in time to Minnesota in 1862, during the great Sioux uprising that left hundreds of German settlers and Dakota Indians dead, just open the pages of this book. It actually spans the years between 1846-1876, with an epilogue that takes us to 1921. Asa Senger is a young boy just on the brink of manhood when his Aunt Hazel comes to stay with them. Her tales of her childhood enthrall him, and reaches a place deep inside him that changes the course of his life.

The paragraph above is a simple recap of the basic plot, but gives you no inkling of the depth of this book. This first novel by Thomas Maltman takes us there in mind and spirit, putting you inside two room cabins and teepees on the plains. The characters on both sides of the conflict are real enough to make you feel both joy and pain at events, making you hope for the best, even when you know it's impossible. We get both sides of the story, from the white settlers who take and take and take, trying to make a better life for themselves, and the Dakota Sioux, watching their land and livelihood disappear because of the greed of the white man who assumes superiority. There is, of course, love and hate in these pages, but also mystery and spirituality, shame at what we are doing to destroy the natural world, and the importance of family, no matter what color your skin is.

This book comes under the heading of one of my favorite book genres, pioneer tales, showing us the courage and determination of the people who settled this country, and the people who were here before us. A lot of this tale is based on historical fact, with special guest appearances by a flock of passenger pigeons (now extinct), and Frank and Jesse James. Those scenes, along with the quality of the writing, put this book over the top for me.

[Cathrine ☯️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 🤕 🤕 🤕 🤕
I have a picture of my great great grandparents and their nine children. They immigrated to Minnesota from Europe to claim land and farm shortly after the time period of this story. They look severe, unhappy, and worn out. I bet they had some stories to tell.

Little house on the prairie this most definitely is not. If there was any romantic notion left in me about coming of age or homesteading in late 1800s America it has been chewed up, spit out, and consumed by locusts.
A worthy and brutal historical fiction read where no one is spared, not the Native Americans, not the animals or children, and certainly not the reader. Despite the author’s vain attempt to reward those of us still reading with a bone via the epilogue, it beat the buffalo chips out of me. I wonder if my ancestors ever wished they could return from whence they came?

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

this isnt a book that hides its secrets well - but it still tells a good story. its not as laced with the grimms tales at the jacket copy would suggest, and it gets a little muddy in places; the tone is uneven - sometimes rushed, sometimes drawn-out, but its a good read and a great first book.

[Wyndy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 superb stars. I’ve read some outstanding books the past few months, but nothing has grabbed and twisted my emotions like this one: hate, love, horror, sympathy, sorrow - immense sorrow. Nothing has immersed me so completely in a dark chapter of history that I knew so little about: the Dakota War Of 1862, which resulted in the largest mass execution in U.S. history.

The book begins with the birth of Asa Senger, now fourteen and a third generation Midwest settler. Hazel Senger, Asa’s aunt, has miraculously survived the early settlement of both the Missouri and Minnesota plains in the 1850’s, the Dakota War Of 1862, and a ten-year stint in an insane asylum and returns to the family homestead to tell Asa her tale: “All her life she had only been a witness for the things that happened, never someone with the power to shape events.”

Maltman writes a complex, multi-layered, meticulously researched book about early pioneering in the Midwest and the ongoing disputes between white settlers, the U.S. government and various tribes of Indians. It’s blood and guts and rape and wolf-dogs and mothers who abandon their children and feathers and breechclouts and scalps with brains attached and shattering hailstorms and devouring locusts and reading Thoreau by tarrow candle and snow blindness and near starvation and spirits and Judas flowers and sacred stones and an eye for an eye and birds birds birds . . . blackbirds, crows, pigeons, der nacht vogel. And survival and absolution and hope. Characters you will never forget. All this in a debut novel - incredible. A gripping, emotional journey highly recommended to anyone who enjoys first-rate historical, literary fiction.

“I set this down now for him, for the day of his return. This was all foretold long ago. A time I saw the world end and walked through the wreckage to witness its rebirth. “This is where you come from,” my book will say, “this is what you are.”” ~ Hazel Senger

[Ned · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is some of the finest fiction I’ve read from a new writer for me. Thanks to the dear departed Kirk and my friends for helping me find this author. I’ll read his body of work now and give this one. Full review later.

This is the style of novel that works well for me. I can learn some real history and the characters are rich, entertaining and seem authentic for the time. Especially I loved the visit from the James brothers, as I recall their misadventure in Minnesota, and they have a history in my local Missouri. The brutality of the battles was grisly and realistic. 2018 was the year of the native American for me, and this was my fourth of the type, and my favorite. Maltman has a special gift for understanding men and women and familial love. The bird theme was throughout, and a constant reminder of the spirit world that inhabited these characters. Some felt this novel jumped around too much, and the case of characters complicated, but I found it well structured and the layers built on each other nicely. It is perhaps a characteristic of historical novels, and there were a few logical gaffes, but overall the style was effective for me. This was an emotional novel, and touched me deeply in the maternal and otherworldly love that the main character Hazel brought - she was a heroine to me.

p. 22: "I hesitated, thinking on the bits of information I'd managed to wheedle from my mother over the last nine days. That Aunt Hazel 'knew things a Christian woman out not to,' her way of implying the woman was a witch. That Aunt Hzel hadn't resisted when taken captive, had wanted it even. Now this woman stodd before me and she was not the wispy, white-haired vision I had imagine. Not a woman with faraway eyes and long yellow fingernails, but one who looked you straight in the face and saw the fears you hid in your underbelly and smelled the regret on your skin. To tell the truth, she frightened me. But despite certain recent lapses, I was an obedient child and so went to her and let her put her on my cheeks until I looked up into her eyes and tried to still the quivering in my stomach. Only a woman does a thing like that: takes you into her hands like she held a sparrow and was divining its lifespan, the good and the bad. Men are keen about other things, but not very often about people. Aunt Hazel didn't' say anything about what she saw in my eyes, not at that time."

p. 48, some beautiful yet ominous nature writing: "A white flash rippled and faded outside the window, followed by a close grumble of thunder. It was early in the year for such weather; a surge of warm air that came fromt eh south and made men think and act in ways that went against nature."

p. 143, Maltman's exquisite descriptions of bodily sensation: "Jakob felt it first, an itch that spread through his hands and arms like the pox. No sores, appeared on his winter-pale skin, but he couldn't stop scratching. It spread from him to all of them, and invisible rash that burrowed into their veins. Hazel tried everything: a lotion of mullein leaves, tea made from willow bark, but the itch continued to burn beneath their skin like prickles of white-hot flame...They wanted to tear the very skin from their flesh, to strip themselves down to sinew and ligament.

p. 346, on the precipice of consciousness / death " There is a place inside us beyond blood and breath. Picture rolling grassland spilling over the edge of a cliff in a green wave. The other side of the cliff is molten with rivers of light winding toward the jaws of the mountains. All around you smell the rain, and in the wind there are voices of those you lost. You are afraid of this edge inside of you, of what will happen when you step over. Maybe in your ordinary days you forget it even exists. Children know it, and the elderly."

p. 358, Jesse James' sadness for what will be lost: "We aren't' anything before what's coming. An age of machines. The great plains tribes will fall before the Gatling gun. Wires will whirl a voice across mountains and deserts in a blink. The railroads and steamships will go on reducing ocean and distance into nothing. I stand in the way of such an age. I want to throw a cog into the churning wheels of these machines. Such things will consume us."

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

As another friend has said this book was a journey and one worth taking. This was a perfect historic fictional account of the US Dakota Conflict (Great Sioux war of 1862). I don’t know how the author could have written this any better. This one will hit you in the feels. Highly recommend!!!

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay... ahem... full disclosure: I'm going to do my level BEST to get you to read this little, unknown piece of historical fiction. Be prepared.

It's crazy how this book first popped on my radar. It was either 2009 or 2010 and I was browsing the stacks at my local library. I picked up The Night Birds because I got a good feeling from it, like some sort of wacky, mystical book-sniffer. Two days later, I'd finished the novel and felt like I'd just stepped off an emotional tilt-a-whirl.

I've only ever read this book once. My library no longer has a copy (probably my fault; I took the book along with me on a kayaking trip aaaaand kind of dropped it in a river) and I have a hunch that it's out of print. Now that I think on it, I should really hunt down a copy and purchase it. All of this is to say, my memory of the book's particulars are unfortunately fuzzy.

What I remember most starkly, however, are the huge waves of emotion that I felt while reading The Night Birds. Huge, huge waves of feelings. Also, I remember being deeply impressed by the overall quality of the novel.

The book is set during the Civil War era in the rural midwest. Think Little House on the Prairie, but written for an older audience. Our narrator is a boy, Asa, and the story begins when his aunt Hazel comes to stay with his family on their farm. Hazel has been released from an asylum, and it becomes clear that she suffers from epilepsy and the memories of lost love and disappointments. She and Asa form a close bond. It's a relationship rarely seen in fiction — that of an aunt and her nephew, but it's a very beautiful rapport that the two share in The Night Birds.

What happens next is intense and heartbreaking. It has to do with the Dakota indians and their last-ditch struggles to escape the stranglehold of the white men, which resulted in staggering violence and tragedy. I will not try to hide it from you; there is blood in The Night Birds. It's shocking, and hard to read, but what's important to remember is that the Dakota Conflict of 1862 is a real historical event, and it often gets overshadowed in the history books by the Civil War.

What Maltman does so well in The Night Birds, is he humanizes the people on either side of the conflict. We get to see the beauty of the Dokata lifestyle, how it is threatened, and their growing desperation that culminates in mass murder. We also understand the plight of the white pioneers, and their struggles. What Maltman doesn't provide us is relief from the reality of what happened. Because of this, The Night Birds is hard to read.

Huh. I'm not doing such a great job at selling this book, am I? Ah, well. Just trust me when I say that The Night Birds has transformative power. It's a beautiful piece of literature and an accomplishment of historical fiction. By God, read it.

[Miss_otis · Rating 4 out of 5]

14-year-old Asa Senger is intrigued when his mysterious Aunt Hazel, recently released from an asylum, comes to stay with his family in frontier Minnesota. Come to find out, the townspeople say Hazel is/was an Indian lover (physically and simply emotionally), and they’re none too welcoming, much like Asa’s mother. Hazel’s not very forthcoming with details of her past, but little by little, Asa gathers his family’s history from her, and boy, is there history.

I liked this book a lot. I’m a big fan of realistic-feeling frontier tales, where frontier life’s not romanticized, where all the hard realities are there, stated fairly simply and not stressed by the writer as “SEE HOW TERRIBLE IT WAS”, but where the writer uses the POVs of his characters to show the harshness of such a life. I’m a bigger fan of writers who approach the Native American Position on Settlers from an angle of resentment and tentative acceptance/friendship, and who are able to make the reader understand, at least a little bit, why both the white folk and the tribes would resent each other while getting along in some ways.

Hazel’s personal history, and therefore the history of Asa’s family, is woven around an actual historic incident, the Sioux uprising of 1862, which ended in the largest mass execution in US history.

Maltman does a lovely job of using history as an underlying current in his story, builds thoughtful, complex characters, creates scenarios which seem true to time period and location, and doesn’t make anything at all easy, which is certainly how it should be. There’s nothing easy about early relations between settlers and the Native Americans; it’s traumatic and heart-breaking on both sides.

[~☆~Autumn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is way too depressing. Do yourself a favor and don't read it. There is too much murder and endless torture of all kinds.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kirk,

This was the last book you gave our little group to read before your life was taken on the side of the road after a day of sailing your treasured boat. I am sorry our group never got to read and discuss The Night Birds with you. I feel like you chose this book for us because you had read another book by Thomas Maltman and you were impressed by his work. I wonder, did you know we were all destined to love this novel? Did you know how epic and emotional it would be?

While the Civil War was breaking out another war was brewing that we didn’t focus on in our American history books. It was the The Sioux Uprising, The Dakota Conflict, The Indian Wars and it was extremely important in our nations history. A war of American’s fighting to survive and Indians flighting for what we took from them, their lands, their livelihood.

I think it is important to remember our history. We like to try to erase history these days. Sweep it under the rug. Tear it down. Hide it away. Point fingers. Lay blame on others. The truth is that you cannot erase history. It is important to remember our history so that we can learn from it. Learn from the the things we did well and from the mistakes we have made so that we will not repeat them. Work together and not tear each other to shreds. Maltman’s book, although fiction, is a history lesson to remember and learn from.

The amount of research that culminated into The Night Birds is worth noting. The presentation of this epic and multi-generational saga by Maltman is masterful. Beautiful words and imagery. Bloody conflict and pain. So well done you could smell the campfires, feel the rain, smell the blood and the damp earth. Night Birds is a roller coaster of emotions, but an amazing historical account of a little talked about part of America’s history. A part of history we would do well to remember and learn from.

Kirk, thank you for this book that I read so slowly while savoring every word that weeds came up in my flowerbeds, the seasons changed, and the leaves on the trees became multi-colored and beautiful. This book gets my five star classic rating because it is worthy of being read for generations to come.

TINA

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Night Birds was Thomas Maltman’s first novel. It covered a part of history that was unfamiliar to me – The Dakota War of 1862 where many Indians and settlers lost their lives. After the war’s end, 38 Indians were executed at a mass hanging. I felt a lot of sympathy for both the settlers and Indians as a few evil men on each side brought about this tragedy. Most just wanted to live out their lives peaceably. The book is told through the eyes of Asa, a young boy named after his uncle who was killed in the Indian uprising. His aunt Hazel is coming to live with his family. She had spent the previous 10 years locked away in an asylum and he had not known of her existence. This is a grim time and place especially for women. The hard work, filth, the death of so many young children from disease and dangers of child birth with little or no medical aid were enough to drive any woman into an asylum. But Hazel had been placed there mainly because she had a breakdown after the mass hanging of the Indians and also suffered epilepsy and was considered unfit for society. She tells Asa about the family’s history – a subject no one else in the family had ever talked to him about. She tells of her father being run out of Missouri due to his unpopular anti-slavery views, their escape to Minnesota and becoming settlers. The book is filled with references to birds – passenger pigeons, crows, owls, to name a few and how they help or hinder them.
I was not at all surprised at the book’s ending. I had guessed early on what Hazel’s secret was, but it was still an interesting read.

[Joe Stack · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a first novel, the author gives readers a remarkable story of the toils and tribulations of 19th Century pioneers and the conflict between them and the Dakota tribe. The author does an outstanding job in telling the story from both sides and makes history come alive. When the story comes to the Dakota uprising, his telling is not for the squeamish, but that can be said for much of U.S. history.

The author, in his afterward, wrote that he strove to be as faithful as possible to historical fact, but his “ultimate loyalty” was to the characters in his imagination. I think he has succeeded in both, especially in bringing the voices of his characters out of his imagination into the hearts and minds of readers.

[Caroline Bartels · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was SOOOO good, so intense, just really, really well done! Maybe it's because I'm from South Dakota and grew up in the area and know all the places to which Maltman refers, and I'm half-German and grew up knowing all the German and Norwegian folklore and stories of settlers, this book really struck a chord. I still read all of the Little House books about every 10 years since when I first finished the series as a 5th grader, and now I'm in my mid-40s, but there was so much of that story here, the struggle to survive on the prairie, to cope with the harshness of the landscape with few people around who can actually help. Such a beautiful weaving of the story of the Dakota Sioux who were in the area and the constant tension between the settlers and the native people to get along. Less bleak than Giants in the Earth, but in some ways much harsher because of the emotional impact that the interactions between the two groups -- both sweet and violent -- has on the reader is intense. Highly recommended!

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The one-line version: a tear-jerker, but worth it.

This was a heartwrenching illustration of early settlers and native Americans' parallel struggles to eke out life and meaning in the 1800s, set mostly in the Ozarks and in Minnesota. It's based in actual historic events, a conflict between natives and settlers that happened during the Civil War. Officially it's a young adult novel, but it doesn't shy away from or sugarcoat any of what actually happened. A lot of the characters are kids passing into adulthood under what are unimaginably difficult circumstances. They embody hope and courage and some of them have serious dark sides. Many face circumstances in which there are no right choices.

Among my favorite lines: " ... her stories left tracks in me and I was not the same after."

And this, improbable but good, from Jesse James (yep, that one): "I've seen and done terrible things. ... We aren't anything before what's coming. An age of machines. The great plains tribes will fall before the Gatling gun. Wires will whirl a voice across mountains and deserts in a bling. The railroads and steamships will go on reducing ocean and distance into nothing. I stand in the way of such an age. I want to throw a cog into the churning wheels of these machines. Such things will consume us."

I was sorry to see this end and I'll remember it one for a long time. The land around me -- I live in a city on the edge of the Plains, in a neighborhood where streets are named after native tribes -- seemed more alive after I read it. There was nothing formulaic about it. In fact it took me a little effort to get into it because in the beginning it was almost mythopoetic, narrative that was all about reaching deep into the dark to create meaning from loss. Later some of the plot twists created so much narrative tension that I absolutely couldn't put the book down. The phrase "crescendo of tragedy" comes to mind.

[Tbone · Rating 4 out of 5]

“…the night birds, der nacht vogel, birds that led humans out of sorrow.”

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel which discussed life in the perspective of both Native Americans and European immigrants during this country’s early years of turmoil. In occupying such a close proximity the groups were bound to intermingle. Unfortunately, stereotypes have the ability to influence hatred without providing a reason to loathe the particular person. The fear held for those who were different but also an overcoming curiosity was painted in detail. The war context enabled the author to demonstrate how similar people are; each group was struggling to survive at any cost. This book has everything: interracial love, suffering, burdensome relatives, war, sex, murder, folklore, and “magic,” even an appearance by Jesse James. I actually had a hard time putting it down. More than a coming of age, it was about Asa discovering how he was intertwined with history. Listening to a story of the repeated traumatic events that happened to his family, Asa’s own future unfolds.

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved this story about 2 generations of settlers on the wild prairies of America, alternately befriending and fighting Indians. I wasn't really wild about the back and forth cutting style, considering the richly dense and emotionally wrenching subject matter it was a little exhausting for me.

[Ginny · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s 1876 in the Minnesota River Valley. Asa Senger is a young boy when Aunt Hazel comes to live with his family. She has just been released from a mental facility because her epilepsy and seizures are finally under control. It doesn’t take long to realize that there is more to Hazel than meets the eye. As she tells her story throughout the book, we learn about the Great Sioux War of 1862, the mass hanging of 38 Dakota warriors in Mankato, and the intricacies and nuanced relationships between the white settlers and the Dakota during that time period.

The way that Thomas Maltman interweaves the plot with the experiences of white settlers and the Dakota people is magnificent. This book teaches (and reminds) us that our lives will always intertwine with the people who we live with and around, whether or not we share a culture. Perhaps it is better to learn how to share cultures than to fight to remain separate.

From a historical perspective, Maltman's depth of research is evident. I found the afterword to be particularly intriguing and may pick up some of the texts he mentioned. It is possible that I'm slightly more invested than the average reader because I am a transplant to this part of the country and I want to learn more about where I live. At the same time, this is an important history that isn't taught as much as it should be in standard U.S. History courses. Anyone who is interested in learning more about what their history textbook glossed over would find this history intriguing.

Someone suggested this book to me because I loved Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger, and I would echo that pairing. This book has a darker mood and a more mysterious tone, so readers need to be open to and ready for that. In fact, the darkness and mystery made me love this book even more. I feared this was Maltman's only book, and I'm glad that is not the case. I've already requested his second book, Little Wolves, from my library.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw and believable

How people - indigenous and white European - lived back then we would now consider extreme poverty. How on earth did they manage and thrive (eventually)? What were the costs? Is what you think belongs to you really yours to claim? Is your belief really so different from others'? Is your life more or less valuable than another's?

This book is a sliver of history I had not heard of and am very glad I now have.

[Dorothy Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There is beauty in devastation." A beautifully written novel about a tragic and pivotal period in American history. While most of the country was gripped by the tragedy of the Civil War, the western settlements were soaked in the blood of a different war. Night Birds relates the tale of German immigrants to the Midwest, told through 3 generations of the Senger family who strive for the American dream on a plague-ridden parcel of prairie. Across the river their neighbors, the Dakota, strive to maintain their culture & traditions despite continual threat of erosion by that same American dream. The river serves as a line of demarcation between communities. What begins as a neutral zone of curious & friendly interactions devolves into the front line of a war zone. Maltman's depiction of the heart-breaking breakdown of once-positive relations between the settler family and their native neighbors resounds with tragic echos and an implacable sense of doom. Reading the playful exploits of children destined to become mortal enemies reminded me of Byatt's A Children's Story in its evocation of doomed children and a generation lost to senseless violence.

"A terrible beauty is born." Maltman brilliantly finds and depicts the beauty in the darkest of moments. "Passing clouds of locusts clothed the sun, on the move now that a new brood had hatched and eaten our countryside down to the bone. Their many wings were jeweled by the sunlight. A million scarabs of gold moved across parched ground and the land hummed with the song of their gathering hunger." Yet he does not shrink from the tragic realism of the events he portrays. "There is no smell worse than smoke from burning skin. It is the smell of hatred. The smoke from the fire obscured the sun."

"A few on each side did evil and the rest of them had been left to struggle through the wreckage." Night Birds offers balanced portrayals of settlers and Native Americans. A narrative framework of shared family tales and folktales reveals the commonalities of humanity shared by all the characters and the atrocities committed by some of them on both sides of the river. The corrosive, destructive power of hatred and vengeance as well as the less-common redemptive power of grace resonate throughout this great American novel.

[brianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved Little Wolves by Maltman and I really liked this. It appears that it was well-researched, though I don't know enough about the history of the Dakotas to definitively say. I will say that every character was created with depth and Maltman avoided stereotypes of the "noble savage" and "white saviour" effectively. I think the most striking aspect of the novel was the palpable tensions between white settler and Dakotas as war and conflict begin to brew, and how this influences the relationships between the children, who all play together until they grow older and the tensions begin to make their friendships 'taboo' and untrustworthy.

Even minor characters who were pretty hate-able like Henrietta were still written in a realistic way so that you couldn't hate them without empathizing with what brought them to that point.

Overall, this is a great historical fiction novel, and Maltman did a beautiful job interweaving the stories of 3 generations of family into one coherent story.

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wrenching but beautifully written tragedy about the conflict between the Dakota Sioux and the American army and settlers. It is based on accounts from both the Dakota and the Europeans who ended up in Minnesota in the mid 1800s and is focused on the story of a girl with the gift of healing who cannot stop what is to come. The use of dreams to foretell and understand is masterful as is the recurring image of the crows. I love the final scene where something stops a young boy from throwing stones at two that watch. His father speaks German: "Hunin and Munin...Like brothers they return. Or so your great-grandfather Jakob would say." "Yes (the boy says). "I remember their names. Memory and Understanding."

It is an Alex Award Winner, given to adult books with special appeal to teens who read at that level.

Maltman will be in Winona (mentioned in book) Nov. 10.

[Ashley Olson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another (though I should say the first) incredible, beautiful novel from Mr. Maltman. I was so stunned and awed by the first I read, "Little Wolves," that I immediately read this book. Growing up on the plains of Minnesota where "The Night Birds" took place, I now have a much deeper sense of this buried period of not only Minnesotan, but U.S. history. Maltman so gorgeously depicts both the Native American and pioneer sides of historical events and people I barely remember learning about, like Wounded Knee and Little Crow. Definitely every Minnesotan should read this book to be pulled back to their roots, but anyone is bound to be floored by the talent and truth (and, as I was so impressed with in "Little Wolves," the tremendous research) evident in Maltman's storytelling.

[Ken Oder · Rating 4 out of 5]

The pace of the first half of the novel is slow and the narrative technique, hindered by too many abrupt changes of the point of view and shifts back and forth in time, obscures an interesting story concept. But the narration settles down and clarifies in the second half. It's primarily told from the perspective of a sixteen year old white Minnesota plains girl who is a captive of the Dakotas during the Indian wars of the mid-nineteenth century. Her story is riveting, artfully written, and well worth the wait, and the conclusion is powerful and unexpected. I couldn't put it down once I got there. Persistence with this book pays off. An exciting, rewarding read.

[Anastasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this more stars I would. Fantastic book and a fantastic person to know.

[Kristin Flor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes place in my home state of Minnesota during the Dakota War of 1862 also known as the Sioux uprising. This was a piece of history I didn’t know about and the author made a great story of the events that happened during this time. It definitely has its very jaw dropping, raw moments, but what is to be expected during a war? Many little twists and turns throughout the book and even a little bit of Jesse James the outlaw makes it’s way in there. A good little story and I’m glad I pulled it from my little library pull jar.

[Debra Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a good read. Takes you back in time to a period I was not that familiar with. Contains a number of facts in history.

[Mary Cross · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is highly recommended! Such a honest and brutal approach to a tragic time in American history.

[Kari · Rating 5 out of 5]

A breathtaking, beautifully written and exceedingly violent historical novel about the Sioux Uprising of 1862.

The story traces three generations of a German immigrant family that settles across the river from a band of Dakota Sioux in Minnesota. Told from the points of view of both the settlers and the Dakota, it explores the shifting relationships between neighbors driven apart by their cultures and war.

Maltman’s writing is so evocative that I was enthralled from the first chapter, describing a disgusting plague of crunchy locusts, to the final pages revealing family secrets kept for a generation. Not for the faint-hearted, both animals and people are brutalized.

I will say that I figured out the big family secret in the second chapter, but I'm willing to forgive that, because I enjoyed the journey so much.

Also, even though there were sympathetic Dakota characters, I felt that they were portrayed as much more savage and brutal than the white characters. I would have liked to see some more balance.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an Alex Award book a few years ago and another YA librarian suggested it at a meeting where we were discussing historical fiction. Since it was right up my alley (19th century, american pioneers, Native-Americans, conflict, etc.), I looked it up and wasn't disappointed. The story is about identity as well as the things the night birds of the title represent to Hazel's father, a German immigrant who tells her the story of the black birds Hunin and Munin -memory and understanding. This is why she shares her story of the Sioux uprising in southern Minnesota in 1862 with her nephew in 1876. She wants him to know what shaped him. Well written, sympathetic to the those caught in the middle of two warring sides, sad and yet hopeful. The power of those who try to heal runs through the book, contrary to the power of blood spilt. Yet both healing and harming are not always clearcut. A complex view of the past. A journey worth taking.

[Richelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Immigrants settling on the plains, and the Native Americans who already live there. I liked how this book tells both sides of the story. The story is such a tragic one of brutality and violence on both sides that it is hard to read about. There were some really violent scenes that I'm sure have historical basis, but were just hearbreaking to read about. There were several time lines or story lines woven together, but it was easy to go back and forth between them. I liked how the author brought the two closer and closer together until it all made sense. It was well done. It did seem there were a handful of editing errors that detracted slightly from the story. Whenever I'm immersed in the story line and then there's a mistake that stands out, it brings me out of the story. I noticed that happening several times, so there were probably even more which I didn't notice.