Danny Blackgoat, a Navajo teenager, was taken to a Civil War prison camp during the Long Walk of 1864. He escaped in volume one, Danny Blackgoat, Navajo Prisoner, but in this second installment, he must still face many obstacles in order to rescue his family and find freedom. Whether it’s the soldiers and bandits who are chasing him or the dangers of the harsh desert climate, Danny ricochets from one bad situation to the next, but his bravery doesn’t falter and he never loses faith.

Danny Blackgoat, a sixteen-year-old Navajo, is labeled a troublemaker during the Long Walk of 1864 and sent to a prisoner outpost in Texas, where fellow captive Jim Davis saves him from a bully and starts him on the road to literacy--and freedom.

During the Civil War, the United States Army imprisoned thousands of Navajos in unsafe conditions at Fort Sumner. Through the eyes of teenager Danny Blackgoat, readers experience how the Din� people struggled to survive. In the concluding novel of the Danny Blackgoat trilogy, the major characters appear in a final scene of reckoning. Danny Blackgoat must face the charge of stealing a horse from Fort Davis'or reveal that his old friend, Jim Davis, stole the horse to help Danny escape. The penalty for horse theft in the 1860s? Death by hanging. Only the word of a Navajo woman can save both Danny and Jim Davis, but will she arrive at Fort Sumner before the bugles sound and the hanging begins? Danny Blackgoat: Dangerous Passage is filled with history-based action, as the Din� people leave their imprisonment and return to Navajo country.

The fictional worlds created by many contemporary American and Canadian Indigenous novelists for young people provide unique access to the lived experiences of Indigenous people, past, present, and future and the often inaccessible worlds they inhabit. Readers aged 10-16 will gain many insights about Indigenous people and themselves—Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers alike—through sustained immersion in fictional worlds where Indigenous people are foregrounded, active, autonomous, respected, and valued. Exploring Indigenous Novels in Grades 5-10: Literature Studies Focusing on Indigenized Worlds, a companion book for Indigenous Novels, Indigenized Worlds, offers teachers and students in grades 5-10 a unique framework and specialized sets of resources for collaborative classroom explorations of indigenized worlds created by the Indigenous writers. This unique book offers illuminating sets of questions and carefully selected print and digital resources for classroom explorations of 11 Indigenous novels spanning the genres of historical, contemporary realistic, and fantasy fiction. These questions and resources focus student learning on such indigenizing features as ancestral beings, sacred objects, cultural values, celebratory dances, traditional stories, material appropriation, cultural denigration, community leadership, restoration, and more.

The fictional worlds created by many contemporary American and Canadian Indigenous novelists for young people provide unique access to the lived experiences of Indigenous people, past, present, and future and the often inaccessible worlds they inhabit. Readers age 10-16 will gain many insights about Indigenous people and themselves—Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers alike—through sustained immersion in fictional worlds where Indigenous people are foregrounded, active, autonomous, respected, and valued.

Danny Blackgoat is a teenager in Navajo country when soldiers burn down his home, kill his sheep, and capture his family. During the Long Walk of 1864, Danny soon becomes a troublemaker, refusing to accept captivity. He is sent to Fort Davis, Texas, a Civil War prisoner outpost. There he battles bullies, rattlesnakes, and soldiers, until he meets Jim Davis. Davis teaches Danny how to hold his anger and how to read and speak in English. For Christmas, Davis aids Danny in a daring and dangerous escape. Set in troubled times for the Navajo, Danny Blackgoat is the story of one boy's hunger to be free.