Colerick and Feldmann's historical montage captures the tragic life of Zintkála Nuni, a baby found alive in her dying mother's arms after the massacre of the Lakota people at Wounded Knee. This stunning YA debut transcends the confines of a single book, as the authors, through their multimedia flagship company, resurrect Zintka’s powerful tale, first brought to light in Renée Sansom Flood’s biography, Lost Bird of Wounded Knee: Spirit of the Lakota. Through diverse artistic mediums, Colerick and Feldmann employ song, ledger art, winter counts, and film with exquisite, emotionally charged images, ensuring that Zintka’s story will never be forgotten. This haunting narrative reveals America’s wretched treatment of Indigenous peoples, which Feldmann terms “a 400-year decimation… by guns, germs, and grant deeds.” Zintka—stolen as a trophy from her Lakota mother by General Leonard Wright Colby—embodies that treatment, and the authors pay respect to her attempts to straddle her biological roots and bitter adoptive world. Zintka’s adoptive mother, women’s rights activist and publisher of Woman’s Tribune Clara Bewick Colby, whose husband forged her signature on the adoptive papers in court, grew to love Zintka, but was left penniless when she and Leonard divorced. In evocative imagery, Colerick and Feldmann recount Zintka’s desperate search for belonging, as she moved between husbands, Hollywood, and Clara’s home, accepted by neither her adopted world nor the Lakota people.
The surreal juxtaposition of images of the Lakota, their homes, and Zintka under her Lakota name, “Lost Bird,” strikes a melancholy tone that engulfs while triggering a powerful emotional connection. Feldmann uses digital ledger art—including backgrounds made from broken treaties, news articles, and military documents that record the deaths of soldiers and horses, but not of the Lakota people—to starkly highlight the broken relationship between Indigenous people and white settlers. The images, and Colerick’s emotive song, “Little Bird – Lost Bird of Wounded Knee,” tear at the soul.
Takeaway: Stunning artistic recreation of Zintkála Nuni’s story.
Comparable Titles: Patty Krawec’s Becoming Kin, S.D. Nelson’s Sitting Bull.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
