Sky Dancers

Review
By Booklist

In her first work of fiction for children, Kirk introduces the generations-old connection between the Mohawk people and steelworking. John Cloud, who lives on a reservation, misses his father and uncle during their weeks working construction sites in Manhattan. John’s first visit to the city brings both strange sights (There were traffic lights where John thought trees should be) and deepening pride when he witnesses his father’s agile figure high atop the incomplete Empire State Building. . .children will thrill in Hale’s images of the ‘sky dancers’ casually strolling along the narrow beams. This will work nicely to extend children’s understanding of Native American traditions, and Kirk’s carefully phrased author’s note provides clear-eyed background on how members of this particular group came to be disproportionately represented in such a spine-tingling line of work.