Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve has been selected as SDCTE Author of the Year.
She is the author of many children's books and of the memoir Completing the
Circle, winner of the 1992 North American Indian Prose Award.
"Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve is a credit to South
Dakota," said Karen Harrington, former president of SDCTE "and we are honored to name her SDCTE Author of the Year."
Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve is an author who writes about immigration
from a different perspective--that of the people already living here. The challenges they faced were those
bought by foreigners whose very number and weapons gave them the advantage.
Their goal was survival.
Jimmy Yellow
Hawk, for instance, is the story of a little boy who must learn how to live in
two worlds for he is the product of both, as is the author. Her most recent work,
The Trickster and the Troll, describes the humorous adventures that befall the Lakota mischief-maker,
Iktomi, when he joins up with his Norwegian counterpart. Children (and adults)
of both cultures cannot help noticing how two characters from diverse cultures have more things to
share than to disagree about. This theme befits so much of our South Dakota literature.
Completing the
Circle, as Sneve explains in the forward, started out to be one woman's story.
Before long, it bad evolved into the stories of many women, particularly those of her
ancestors. Her observations about racial strife and harmony in her own family provide
insights into the experiences common to many South Dakotans of generations past.
The grandmothers, because of their own strong cultural identities, did
not feel threatened by cultures that introduced change. Perhaps the Driving Hawk family provides a gentle reminder
to all of us--to be secure in our own cultural identities that we are able to value the
differences in others.
It is satisfying to know that Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve's works
are readily available to all the school children of this state. But it is a matter
of genuine pride for all of us to know that her works are reaching school children all across this nation, for they have begun to appear in
school textbooks. What a wonderful way for them to be introduced to South Dakota and its
people!