Author Janet Sabina says of her fictional Navajo characters: When the U.S.Army forces hundreds of Native American Navajo families from their homes to an internment camp in what is now New Mexico in 1864, I want readers to see the confusion, the blood, the despair.
When my young protagonist is unable to protect his mother and newborn brother as he promised his father he would, I want readers to fight tears as he promises himself, I will not weep. When he lies beside a meager fire suffering from small pox and wondering what death is like, I want readers to wonder too.
I want them to feel the humiliation of a young girl who has been sold as a slave when her owner rips a dress from her body. When she escapes with a young man of her people and builds a marriage ceremony with what she remembers from home, I want readers to celebrate with her.