Teaching Disco Square Dancing to Our Elders

Subtitle
A Class Presentation

Kenny Two Hawks and Martin Leads to Water have problems. It's the end of middle school, and Kenny is on the brink of not making it into high school. Through a random drawing, the boys are assigned bizarre topics for their last middle-school presentation: Do It Yourself Disco and Teaching Square Dancing to Senior Citizens. Enter Amanda Smith, the class klutz and painfully shy half-white, half-Native American girl who gets Exploring Your Culture: Taking Oral Histories as her project. But Amanda is adopted and does not have anyone to ask about her culture, which she so desperately wants to learn about. Martin and Kenny make a deal with Amanda. They will combine all three projects so that the boys have a dance partner, and Amanda can interview Kenny's cool Grandma Two Hawks about the heritage they all share. They have three days to pull it together to create a presentation that will get Kenny into high school. Over the weekend, friendship is tested, first love blooms, and serious secrets threaten to unravel everything. Through it all, Grandma Two Hawks keeps her young people on track with her humor, guidance and a wicked disco dance.

Bio

Larissa FastHorse is a professor of practice in the Department of English and the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University.


Praise for this book

Tender truths set to do-si-do disco. Larissa FastHorse's...play [is] geared toward young audiences but filled with enough humor and emotion to keep adults fully engaged...Her message will resonate with anyone who's ever felt alone in a sometimes harsh, ostracizing world.

Los Angeles Times