Riding the Trail: Cherokees Remember the Removal

In this affirming collaboration, debut author Chavez, a Cherokee Nation and San Felipe Pueblo citizen, joins Cherokee Nation citizen Sorell (Powwow Day) to chronicle the 2021 Remember the Removal bike ride, during which four Indigenous teenagers commemorate the history of the Trail of Tears. Concise opening passages introduce the participants and briefly contextualize the founding of the ride in 1984 by Cherokee Nation educators to combat increasing school dropout rates. Subsequent chapters recall the group’s six-month-long training regime and highlights the importance of the 2021 ride following the cancelation of the 2020 event due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the first ride skipped since it became an annual tradition in 2009. Planned stops along the 950-mile route from Georgia to Oklahoma trace the removal path, emphasizing the organization’s mission to reinforce lessons about Cherokee history. A standout section details the group’s visit to Port Royal State Park, where a park manager shares stories about the removal, shows the riders a preserved portion of the trail, and offers blessed tobacco for them to pray. Ample full-color photographs, maps, and diagrams spotlight the teens and the sites they visited along their journey, amplifying the historical resonance of this sobering look into tragedy and memory. Concludes with a timeline, bibliography, and more. Ages 10–up. Agent: (for Sorell) Emily Mitchell, Wernick & Pratt. (Aug.)