The story of a 17th century Mohawk woman's interaction with her land, the Jesuits, and the religion they brought. In The Reason for Crows, award-winning author Diance Glancy retells the story of Kateri Tekakwitha, a seventeenth-century Mohawk woman who converted to Christianity and later became known as the "Lily of the Mohawks." Left frail, badly scarred, and nearly blind from a smallpox epidemic that killed her parents, Kateri nevertheless took part in the daily activities of her village-gathering firewood, preparing meals, weaving, and treating the wounded after skirmishes with the French and enemy tribes. When the Jesuits arrived in her village, she received their message and converted to Christianity. After her conversion, she was scorned and persecuted by her fellow Indians and eventually left her home along the Mohawk River for a village the Jesuits had established for Christian Indians, where she died at the age of 24. In Glancy's imaginative and poetic retelling, Kateri's interior voice is intertwined with the interior voices of the Jesuit missionaries-the crows-who endured their own hardships crossing the ocean and establishing missions in an unfamiliar land. Together they tell a story of spiritual awakening and the internal conflicts that arise when cultures meet. The collision of cultures Native and invasive never ceases to reverberate, and Glancy, of mixed heritage, takes seismic readings, charting the deep psychological consequences. This is the third novel in a series about young Indian women navigating wrenching change. Pushing the Bear (1996) is a full-scale historical novel about the Trail of Tears. Stone Heart (2003) is an intimate approach to Sacagawea, and here, Glancy exquisitely imagines the feverish inner life of a remarkable historical figure, Kateri Tekakwitha (1656–80), who is currently being canonized by the Catholic Church. Pocked, frail, and nearly blind after a bout with smallpox that killed her family, Kateri is appalled by violence and dazzled by visions. The struggling Jesuit priest in a rough-hewn frontier church, touched by her suffering and purity, reads scripture to her, and she bravely converts. Glancy interweaves Kateri’s blazing penitent thoughts and cosmic dreams with the grim journal entries of several priests tormented by the harsh winter wilderness and their failure to communicate with the people they mean to save, creating a lancingly beautiful journey into pain and spirit. --Donna Seaman In The Reason for Crows, award-winning author Diane Glancy continues her project begun in Pushing the Bear: A Novel of the Trail of Tears and Stone Heart: A Novel of Sacajawea. Imagining the interior voice of Kateri Tekakwitha, Glancy relays the story of the young, seventeenth-century Mohawk woman who would later become known as the "Lily of the Mohawks." Left frail, badly scarred, and nearly blind from a smallpox epidemic that killed her parents, Kateri nevertheless takes part in the daily activities of her village--gathering firewood, preparing meals, weaving, and treating the wounded after skirmishes with the French and enemy tribes. When the Jesuits arrive in her village, she receives their message and converts to Christianity. In this imaginative and poetic retelling, Kateri's interior voice is intertwined with the interior voices of the Jesuit missionaries--the crows--who endured their own hardships crossing the ocean and establishing missions in an unfamiliar land. Together, they tell a story of spiritual awakening and the internal conflicts that arise when cultures meet. "Diane Glancy is a storier of native remembrance at the verge of history. The Reason for Crows is an inspired first person memoir of Kateri Tekakwitha, the daughter of a Christian mother and a Mohawk Chief. Kateri was touched by the Jesuits and `set apart by God.' Pockmarked by smallpox and orphaned as a child in the late seventeenth century, she comes alive in the emotive voice of an eminent literary artist, a particular union of native spirits and God." -- Gerald Vizenor, author of Father Meme Diane Glancy is the author of numerous works of poetry, drama, fiction, and creative nonfiction. She has received an American Book Award, the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, the Native American Prose Award, and a Sundance Screenwriting Fellowship.