Fourteen-year-old Hanna is half Chinese. Actually, as it comes out as the story progresses, she's one quarter Chinese, one quarter Korean and half white, but she never fully articulates that and continues to think of herself as half and half. Her late mother was Chinese/Korean and her father is white.
Hanna's father moves them around a lot, finally settling in La Forge, Dakota territory, based on the recommendation of a friend, Mr. Harris.
Hanna has to overcome several hurdles throughout the book. She wants to attend school to graduate, as her mother wished, but the townspeople pull all their kids from school until it's just Hanna and the two Harris girls. The teacher is sympathetic to Hanna, but also wants to keep her job, so she has the older girls graduate a bit early, both passing their tests. That gives Hanna what she wants and the town what they want, although Hanna justifiably isn't 100% satisfied with this.
Next, there's Hanna's continual struggle with her father, who comes across as kind of a dick a lot of the time. Hanna wants to be the seamstress for her father's dress goods shop, which is what her mother was. Her parents were true partners in the business, as well as in marriage. She wants to put a dress she made in the shop window on opening day and if it generates enough orders, she'll become the seamstress. She hires Bess Harris to help her and the two become friends, despite Bess's racist mom.
Things seem to be going well when two asshole drunks assault Hanna and she's blamed for it. She has to recruit Bess and their former teacher's help to convince the town women that the incident was not her fault and she has the bruises to prove it. The two women are able to pull this off and the store opening is a firm success, giving Hanna and Bess plenty of work to do for the future. The book ends with Hanna finally getting a full-sized mirror in the store, which is what her mother had.
The book is predictably bittersweet in many ways. Hanna is on the Native Americans' side of things and struggles because she's one of the few that is. There are a couple nice scenes where she meets some Sioux women. Hanna also knows the town's racism won't stop just because they start using her to make their dresses. There may be improvements in some but never all. Hanna and a white boy seem to share mutual interest, but such marriages are illegal, so she doesn't see any future for herself other than on her own. (Unless she, like her parents, travels somewhere where it is legal. Hint hint, Hanna.) And of course there's never any real repercussion for the drunken would-be rapists. (Really glad that they only bruised her and didn't actually get away with anything further. It was hard enough to read as it was.)
Hanna's father never gets any real sort of resolution. He comes to terms with her abilities and gives her what she wants in her role in the business, but I don't know if his demeanor will change much. Part of the problem may be that Hanna looks a lot like her mother. That she does is explicitly said at the end, but her father's reaction to it is my speculation.
The author said she put some Little House bits in there. One character is reminiscent of Nellie Oleson, while the Harrises are sort of the Ingalls, which acknowledges the racist mother. The layout of the town is based on a map drawn by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
I love the idea behind this book and how long the author worked to do what she always wanted to do. I wish there were more historical fiction books like this about non-white people in places where you know they had to be but it always gets glossed over. This was quite well done and I definitely recommend it to fans of historical fiction.
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