Lewis Tewanima: Born to Run

Solomon and Fields detail the life of Olympic athlete Lewis Tewanima, from his youth in a Hopi village in Arizona to his forced education at a New Mexico boarding school and his subsequent athletic successes, including medaling at the 1912 Olympics. Although Fields’s characters can be somewhat wooden, she captures the sunset-colored skies and sweeping landscapes of Tewamina’s beloved mesa. While Solomon touches on the prejudices Tewamina and other Native Americans faced, adults will need to fill in the details for readers themselves; a period newspaper report claiming that Tewamina “demonstrated the superiority of the red man as a foot runner” is included, for example, but never discussed further or contextualized. Ages 5–8. (Feb.)