Walks in Beauty

Book Review:

Anita Whitlock is a Navajo teenager coming of age. As she prepares for her eighth-grade graduation, Anita struggles with her identity as a young woman and as a Navajo. She encounters conflict between chores on the family farm and work at the school television station and a boyfriend, who is loyal to Navajo traditions, and a best friend obsessed with white culture. Anita values her Navajo heritage, finding great comfort and pride in its traditions, yet she feels that as a young woman, she may be missing something that her culture cannot offer. In the midst of turmoil and change, Anita finds a stillness that becomes her strength for being both an independent young woman and a Navajo woman who "walks in beauty". Readers learn about and experience daily life on a reservation, Navajo traditions and customs, and the conflicts facing many of today's reservation-based Navajo families.

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