Stone Heart: A Novel of Sacajawea

by Diane Glancy

Journeying alongside Lewis and Clark on their expedition to the west, young Shoshoni Sacajawea records her spiritual experiences, which include her observances of the natural world's messages. By the author of Pushing the Bear. 25,000 first printing.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Native American, Biographical Fiction, Novels, Native Americans, Historical

160 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2003

About the author

(Helen) Diane Glancy is a Cherokee poet, author and playwright.

Glancy was born in 1941 in Kansas City, Missouri. She received her Bachelor of Arts (English literature) from the University of Missouri in 1964, then later continued her education at the University of Central Oklahoma, earning her a Masters degree in English in 1983. In 1988, she received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa.

Glancy is an English professor and began teaching in 1989 at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, teaching Native American literature and creative writing courses. Glancy's literary works have been recognized and highlighted at Michigan State University in their Michigan Writers Series.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the way this story was juxaposed with the journals from the Louis and Clark expedition.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

The reviews call this book "experimental" I think that is a code word for "gimmicky." The fictional journal of the novelist's Sacajawea go down one side of a page, and excerpts from the real Lewis and Clarke, go down the other side of the page. Regular novel format would be more engaging to me, but I don't want to quibble too much, it is an interesting little book.
Now that I've finished it, as a novella length book, it was OK, but I don't think this would have worked for a full length novel. I am surprised that it got such rave reviews. I like the way historical fiction can give quick glimpses to the way people's lives really might have been. (Occasionally this Sacajawea sounded just slightly 20th century feminist.)

[Amy Webster-Bo · Rating 4 out of 5]

i enjoyed the story, but not sure how much of it was true or not

[Eden Silverfox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this simply because I love reading anything about Sacajawea. There is not very much known about her, but I still read books about her in hope of finding out a bit of information I may not have known. Stone Heart was able to provide a bit of information I had not known before, as well as being an interesting read.

No one knows the voice of Sacajawea or how she exactly felt during her life time. We only know what is in the journals of Lewis and Clark. And that just leaves me wondering, what was she like? I think the author did a good job trying to imagine what Sacajawea might have been like or felt. The author did her research and even went to some parts of the Lewis and Clark expedition to find Sacajawea's voice. We will never know if this is truly how Sacajawea was, but I still think the author did a wonderful job trying to imagine what this amazing woman was like.

It was a great book and it included some writing from Lewis and Clark's journals. I recommend this book for anyone who likes to read about Sacajawea.

[Michele · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fictionalized diary of Sacajawea set along side excerpts of Lewis and Clark's expedition notes. While an interesting choice in writing style, it ultimately made reading a chore. The story has potential -- Sacajawea returns to her homeland, visits the ocean, raises her infant son while travelling on a long journey -- but is written in a format that reads much like the notes of Lewis and Clark, at times painfully dry.

[Jeanette Lukowski]

There's just something about the genre of Historical Fiction that always intrigues me. ;-)

[Gage Mcnally · Rating 3 out of 5]

I choose to read Stone Heart because i wished to learn more about the Journey of Lewis and Clark.I did not just learn about the journey though.This book was not written in normal book format,it was written as a journal by Sacajawea.Not only did it include Sacajaweas interpretation of the journey but it also included en scripts from Lewis and Clarks journal.I did not only learn the facts of the journey and what happened but i learned what went through these peoples minds.I also found certain things in particular to be interesting.In one part of the Journey One of Lewis and Clarks men is attacked by a Bear and the way it is written makes it seem almost as if its a common thing.It shows how the world has changed from back then to now.Now if you were to run into a bear most the time it would leave you alone or run but back then it seems as almost the bears had a grudge on Explorers.Overall this book is very informative and i would recommend it to anyone who wishes to learn of the journey of a brave women whose courage should inspire us all.

[Maureen13 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I had to love Stone Heart because this is the novel I wrote my graduate school admissions paper on. I love how she took the Lewis and Clark expedition diary and then wrote a fictious Sacajawea diary side by side with it. I think it made the L & C records less boring.

[Robin Sandwina Holloway · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for our library's book talk. I enjoyed it. The format is very different. There are notes from Lewis and Clark's journals in the margins. The novel is told from Sacagawea's point of view, but she refers to herself as "she."

[Fran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Different type of novel... Excerpts from the journals of both Merriweather Lewis and William Clark run along the right hand side of the page and Sacajawea's thoughts and feelings along the journey.

[Cheryl McEnaney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting weave of the first-person thoughts of Sacajawea with the actual excerpts from the journals of Lewis & Clark.

[Susan Goertz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good effort, yet I feel like more research with native women would have really benefited this book.

[John Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diane Glancy has written novels of three different Native American female historic figures. About a month ago, I read her book on the Trail of Tears which was the first in this series and in that book, she told the story through the voices of different walkers of the Trail. In this one, she juxtaposes journal entries from Lewis and Clark in boxes, on the left hand side of the page, with Sacajawea's thoughts on the right hand side. The format, while at first hard to get used to, works well in the end to bring out the thoughts of this Native woman-guide along side what Lewis or Clark had written about what was happening at that time in the voyage.

[Rhonda Ketterling · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is generally written in a columnated format with the authors text about the thoughts and actions of Sacajawea on one side and actual excerpts from the Lewis and Clark journals on the other. Many of the journal entires underpin the narrative. Interesting from a historical sense. Sacagawea was a Shoshone Indian who was kidnapped by the Hidatsa and then either won or bought by her French Canadian husband. She was 16 at the time of the expedition. She had a hard life and died at age 25.

[❄Elsa Frost❄ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is one of Diane Glancy's better pieces. The story employs second-person and does it very well. Additionally, Diane Glancy also employs the journals (which she listened to on cassette) very well by boxing that on one side and making Sacajawea's voice the main voice of the story.

Excellent piece. I'm giving it 4-4.25 stars.

[Keith Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

In memory, this book lives because of the way Glancy chose to tell it, by creating Sacajawea's journal to go with those by Lewis and Clark. It is a necessary corrective. Here's what I wrote back in the day:

https://annarborobserver.com/articles...

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is written in journal form. It is informative and touching.

[Andrea Renfrow · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not get past the style and layout of this book, and I desperately wanted to.

[Roxanne Miracle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well this book is a good book if you wanna know how Sacajawea's life began and to know how she got to where she helped Lewis and Clark on their journey. Its very interesting because it makes you wanna read what happens to her. This book explains the troubles and good things she has gone through like having to get captured and traded away from her family and then like when she has to get beatin by her husband and having a kid and plus doing chores/work and help the men on the journey to find food. But it also shows that she is brave and strong to go through everything and being able to help the men on the journey through getting items from different tribes by being a translator, and also helping by traveling and being a negotiator and helping them find which ways to go, which helped them save weeks of traveling. And it is good because she gets to get back to her homeland in the end....and her child/son gets to go get education from clark at St.Louis. And during this whole book you also get to see the words of lewis and clark because you can see some parts of their journal in the book describing what they did each day...so yah a good book.

[Rusty · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting approach to the story of Sacajawea. The tale was written by a Native American author whose insight into the beliefs of Native Americans surely add to this fictional story. Sacajawea was so young when she took this trip with the Lewis and Clark group. The author chose a journalistic style alternating fictional observations by Sacajawea with excerpts from the Lewis and Clark journals. I found this approach a bit disconcerting when I began the read but soon became accustomed to it.

Yes, I knew that Sacajawea was not as much of a leader as some tales would have us believe. And, I understood how she was treated by the explorers and her husband. I particularly enjoyed the comments from the explorer journals and found myself trying to identify the birds that were described. It was interesting that the explorers treatment of the Native Americans they met was sometimes inconsistent, probably due to what was occurring at the time or what seemed expedient. I did not realize that she died at the very young age of twenty-five and found myself wondering what happened to her young son who was so enjoyed by the group.

[Linda Lipko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully juxtapositioning the imagined voice of young 16 year old Shoshoni Indian Sacajawea with the actual written journal entries of Lewis and Clark, the author paints a beautiful depiction of the expedition.

Balancing the pragmatic statements of Lewis and Clark with the heartfelt observations of Sacajawea, this book is a masterpiece. Adding the voice of Sacajawea to the thoroughly detailed descriptions provides a well-rounded snap shot of American history.

While the author took liberties imagining the thoughts and feelings of Sacajawea, still, this book is a credible documentation of the trails and travails of crossing a wilderness of mountains, raging rivers, biting rattlesnakes, fearsome bison, rain that soaked for weeks and food that at times consisted of dogs purchased from the Indians.

The mere fact that they lived to tell about it is a marvel in and of itself.

This is a marvelously poetic book that leaves the reader in awe of the bravery and courage of the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Highly recommended.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

My most favorite historical figure is Sacagewea so I enjoyed reading this book. It was put together quite differently than others I've read, but interesting none the less. The author wrote it as if Sacagewea herself was thinking, but she thought of herself as "she" rather than "I." Original notes from Lewis and Clark were included on each page also, printed as those two explorers wrote. That drove me crazy! Both men were phonetic spellers, making some of their writing hard to decipher. I had just commented to my husband that for learned men, they sure couldn't spell, then I read the note at the end that said this all took place before Daniel Webster put his dictionary together. This little book did not take long to go through, but I liked the different approach to my heroine's story.

[Lisa]

Basically this is a book about Sacajawea, the indian woman who was a captive of a man who was traveling with Lewis and Clark in their quest to find a viable water route from the Mississippi west. Legend said she was a guide and interpreter but this book said she had to beg to go on the trip but as they progressed Lewis and Clark found out how valuable she was as an interpreter and guide. I didn't get to finish the book before it was due back at the library because my son became very sick while I was reading it and I had to stop reading. At some time in the future I will pick it back up and finish it.

[Mimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Excerpts from the journals of Lewis and Clark were included in this short novel (really, a novella) and I found them to be interesting. Actually, mostly what I found to be interesting was that spelling wasn't standard, so a word would be spelled many different ways throughout the story.
Interwoven are stream of consciousness, second person perspective thoughts of Sacajawea. Not a writing style I enjoy, so the read was frustrating, but it was short, and I was curious how the story would unfold.

[Phair · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this a very odd little book. For me Sacajawea came across as less of a guide and leader and more as a woman with a necessary skill (Shoshone interpreter) who was made use of by the expedition then just left behind. Pretty sad, really. The author received funding from a Playwright's Center to write this and I felt it would come across much better as a stage presentation juxtaposing the two "voices" as they described the expedition.

[Tamara Herrera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, more realistic view of Sacajawea and her story. I have followed the Lewis and Clark trail in parts and been to several interpretive/historical centers, so the story of Lewis and Clark is one I enjoy. This book juxtaposed excerpts from the Lewis and Clark journals with imagined thoughts of Sacajawea during the two-year journey to the Pacific. Although not much happens plotwise, the storytelling is fresh.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting format/perspective, but it didn't grab me.

[Beth (MrsGinTN) · Rating 2 out of 5]

FBC: Event that happened on birthday

[Eunys · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story provides "food for thought" about Sacajawea and the exploration trip lead by Lewis and Clark.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting 2nd person narration alongside historical documents. an attempt to reclaim Sacajawea as an individual.