South Dakota Books

Best Of The Best From The Great Plains Cookbook compiles its recipes from 88 cookbooks drawn from North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. From a non-alcoholic Hot Buttered Rum to Mexican Ice Cream, this impressive, highly recommended compendium offers up wonderful selections for any family meal time or celebratory dining occasion. Of special interest to cookbook enthusiasts is the extensive listing of titles for the entire "Best of the Best" cookbook series from Quail Ridge Press.

It's a real shame that this book is now out of print. I have been told that the illustrator is still kicking around in South Dakota, but no one can find the author. Everything that anyone could want to know about South Dakota's history and the colorful characters that comprise it is here to look at. Calamity Jane, Deadwood Dick, David Volk, Mamie Van Doren, Wild Bill Hickock, Lawrence Welk and Hubert H. Humphrey are all featured. A great way to get kids interested in South Dakota history.

No Western woman writer has shared more of her life as a rancher and environmentalist than Linda Hasselstrom, whose books about living and working on her South Dakota ranch have been an important part of my library since the early 1990s. This collection of essays, written between 1985-1999 and revised for this publication, is a splendid sampling of her prose, by turns brash, provocative, passionate, chilling, and funny. If you haven't yet read Hasselstrom's work, Between Grass and Sky is a fine place to start.

The twenty essays in this book are divided into three sections: Learning to See, Hunter and Hunted, and Who Cares for the Land? The first section takes us deeply into Hasselstrom's homeplace--a landscape of birds, cows, grass, sky, and eternal enigmas. But whether she is writing about stacking hay with an antique tractor on the hottest day in July or tracing the tunnels of mice under the snow or finding snakes in the pressure cooker, Hasselstrom sees all with a fine, practiced eye. "What a busy and engrossing place the prairie is," she writes, and her readers must agree. The second section focuses on the predator-prey relationship and the part that humans play. It includes essays about hunting buffalo, sleeping with grizzlies, and living with loss. Section Three takes a hard look at the consequences of thoughtless land development and the promise of new relationships between communities of people and communities of the land.

This book proves what Hasselstrom has been saying for years: that there is no contradiction between being an environmentalist and a rancher. It is an eloquent testimony to the rancher's daily work on the land, with domestic and wild animals, in all sorts of weather, amid every sort of calamity. It is an appreciation of the strong bonds that unite the communities of those who love the land and use it wisely, as many ranchers do, and a warning of the consequences of reckless, exploitative development.

Once I picked up the book, I couldn't stop until I'd read all the essays, but for me, two stand out. "Sleeping with the Grizzly" is about (at least in part) the challenge of being a menstruating woman on a wilderness trek--it's full of Hasselstrom's characteristic perceptive humor. (No male nature writer could ever have written this!) "The Cow is My Totem" includes the hilarious story of what happened when a coyote blundered into a calf nursery. Savor this comic hyperbole: "From every direction, cows were running toward the nursery. Bags swinging, heads raised, they all bellowed in outrage, assuring their calves that rescue was on the way . . . Rumbling threats, [three bulls] galloped up the slope, persuaded some magnificent stranger was seducing their harem. I estimate that at that moment, fifty thousand pounds of fury was stampeding toward one forty-pound coyote."

Linda Hasselstrom writes with a naturalist's perceptive eye, an environmentalist's concern, and a rancher's long and practical experience of working and living on the land. Between Grass and Sky belongs on the bookselves of all who care about our American prairies.

Reviewed by Susan Wittig Albert
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviews.org
reviewing books by, for, and about women

Watson Parker's book is a wonderful reference to use to understand the frenetic development of the Black Hills during its Gold Rush days. It also goes on to show the coming and going of little towns throughout the Black Hills. It is well organized and can easily lend itself to spending a day or more driving through the hills trying to find the remnants of the ghost towns. It is a book that I have gone back to year after year to learn about the Black Hills.

Col. Richard Irving Dodge was chosen to lead the 1875 Black Hills expedition to confirm the finding of gold by Custer in his 1874 expedition (Custer was lied about by the media). Dodge is the epitome of virtue, gentleman and officer in leading this most telling tale from his personal journals.
Dodge is frank in his judgements of evidence which blows everything you have heard about history. IE, the Sioux espouse now the Black Hills are sacred. Red Robe, who is a Sioux, though informs Dodge personally that the Sioux (they took the land from the Crow) NEVER had a trail in the Black Hills. They did not like the Hills at all, because of severe storms, biting flies, lack of game and it rained all the time.
The only reason the Sioux were bargaining over the Hills was, because whites who were called Squaw men were telling the Sioux they could be sold for a fortune...all so they could get a huge cut of the Indian money.
The editor Wayne Kime does a very good job in staying out of the way and allowing Dodge's own words reveal historical facts instead of like most historians who decide their words are more important than the writer.
Kime does though fail in not including the hunting kill charts of game animals Dodge and his party harvested which is disappointing for historical reasons in knowing game numbers and what and where wildlife was traditionally found. He also fails in not noting what the rifles, shotguns and fishing equipment Dodge used.
This book though is a very interesting read, because of Dodge's frankness in all the fascinating daily life, characters, history, facts and adventure of an officer and a true gentleman. Our society needs to be exposed more to citizens like Dodge as our heroes in models for our lives.

This book is an excellent historic comparison of the black hills through photos. It is filled with historic information and insight. Great purchase!

This is an extremely well-written insight into the late 1800's America and Cuba, particularly the so-called Buffalo soldiers. Very well researched: A book that is both educational but also a damn good story. I particularly liked the war scenes in Cuba, and learning about native American culture during those troubled times.

This is professional novel standard though it seems to be the author's first book. A great read.

Don't be confused by the format of this book, which is primarily typological, rather than geographical or historical. The first section is on the building materials of the state, and the second is divided by type of building (e.g., farm, church, commercial). Then each type is organized chronologically. The photographs are black and white, and often grainy, but that can't be helped with historical photographs. Overall, it's a very well-done book.

I've been looking for more novels by Doane for years now. This, to my knowledge is his last and its a pity for readers. There is an intelligence, honesty, freshness and skill to his works that was unique, identifiable and very satisfying. Story telling with craft, writing with art and emotion -why isn't this gut famous and why did he stop writing fiction?

Wonderful photographs that give one some insight on what it was like to live in a small rural community in those days. Would love to be able to ask those people in the pictures more about their lives and to be able to be there to share the experiences with them - not necessarily the bronc rides, but definitely the social gatherings. Great time travel.