The Long Journey Home — Don Coldsmith

John Buffalo, a Lakota Sioux, is taken from his family and his home as a young boy and is forced into the White man's world.

Buffalo's teachers soon recognize his extraordinary athletic potential and push him to train for track and field events. Accepting this as a way to integrate into the White man's world, Buffalo sets his sights on competing in the Olympics.

Along the way Buffalo meets a variety of early-twentieth-century celebrities including Theodore Roosevelt, James Naismith, Tim McCoy, and even Jesse Owens, the African-American gold medal winner snubbed by Hitler at the 1936 Olympics.

The Long Journey Home is beautifully written historical fiction that is sometimes heart wrenching, sometimes hilarious, and always poignantly accurate. It is a heartfelt story about love, self, and the reality of home.