Mona Susan Power's A Council of Dolls evokes Dakota women's survival across three generations

Power, an enrolled Standing Rock Sioux tribal member, has penned an original saga detailing how forced colonization impacts three generations of Dakhóta women. She writes sensitively from each young protagonist’s viewpoint while also showing how their childhood ordeals affect them and their families over time.

In the 1960s, Sissy grows up in Chicago with her loving father and troubled mother, Lillian. We then learn Lillian’s history in 1930s North Dakota as she and her sister, Blanche, are sent to an Indian boarding school in Bismarck, where their cruel assimilation into white culture leads to a tragedy Lillian can’t recover from. In the 1900s, Lillian’s mother, Cora, travels to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania and survives the attempted stripping of her heritage.

Each girl has a doll who feels fully alive to her, serving as her confidant and protector. The final account, where an adult Sissy analyzes the dolls’ roles, processes her ancestors’ pain, and reclaims their power is beautifully healing and hopeful. This heart-wrenching account of inherited trauma and resilience is perceptively told.

A Council of Dolls was published by Mariner/HarperCollins on August 8; I wrote this review for Booklist. Not easy to encapsulate four separate stories into a 175-word review! There's much I had to leave out or only hint at.  As Susan Power, the author has also written several other novels, including The Grass Dancer (1997), a saga spanning generations that's set on a reservation in North Dakota and likewise reflects her Sioux heritage.