This reproducible book is an introduction to your great state. Kids will learn about their state history, geography, presidents, people, places, nature, animals, and much more by completing these enriching activities.

South Dakota governor Kristi Noem tells her rough and tumble story of growing up on a ranch, and how a blessed life of true grit taught her how to lead. “We don’t complain about things, Kristi. We fix them.” Taking her father’s words to heart, South Dakota's first woman governor Kristi Noem shares heartfelt – and heartbreaking – lessons on making things right in the world, from her childhood on a farm in the vastness of rural America, to the marbled halls of Congress, to the national spotlight amid a global pandemic. From humorous barnyard battles with feisty cattle and rodeo horses, to the tragic and untimely death of her larger-than-life father, to her decision to her decision to return and run the farm and ranch with her family, Noem invites readers into a life defined by work, faith, and helping others. Noem's reflections are offered in the familiar, unvarnished voice of a woman who later defied Washington’s most powerful politicians and led the people of her small, hardscrabble state through natural disasters, the pain of a global pandemic, and the fear and turmoil that gripped the nation after. While filled with plenty of candid observations and refreshingly frank assessments of the country's leading figures, the memoir's most powerful moments nevertheless come from honest glimpses into marriage, motherhood, and leadership in an unpredictable time. Far from a book about politics, Not My First Rodeo is the story of a life lived so far – with characters as richly textured as the Black Hills, and reflections as gentle and powerful as America itself.

In 2005, Rebecca Norris Webb set out to photograph her home state of South Dakota, a sparsely populated frontier state on the Great Plains with more buffalo, pronghorn, mule deer and prairie dogs than people. South Dakota is a land of powwows and rodeos, corn palaces and buffalo roundups; a harsh and beautiful landscape dominated by space, silence, brutal wind and extreme weather. The next year, however, everything changed for Norris Webb, when her brother died unexpectedly of heart failure. "For months," she writes in the introduction to this volume, "one of the few things that eased my unsettled heart was the landscape of South Dakota. For each of us, does loss have its own geography?" My Dakota is a small intimate book about the west and its weathers, and an elegy for a lost brother.

Archer B. Gilfillan was an anomaly. An Ivy League scholar with a broad knowledge of classical literature and a talent for writing, he nonetheless chose to herd sheep from 1916 to 1934 in a lonely, isolated part of the West. Out of this strange juxtaposition of expertise and experience, Gilfillan produced this classic narrative of American sheepherding. First published in 1929, Sheep: Life on the South Dakota Range provides a personal, informative, and entertaining account of the western sheepherder. From blizzards to predatory wolves, from grass-crazed sheep in the springtime to penny-pinching bosses, Gilfillan misses nothing. He also volunteers his trenchant opinions on modern women, cowboys, and homesteaders--many of whom were his neighbors. In his introduction, Richard W. Etulain, director of the Center for the American West at the University of New Mexico, describes Gilfillan's life and discusses the appeal of the wide-open West to an urban-industrial nation.

The perfect reference guide for students in grades 3 and up - or anyone! This handy, easy-to-use reference guide is divided into seven color-coded sections which includes South Dakota basic facts, geography, history, people, places, nature and miscellaneous information. Each section is color coded for easy recognition. This Pocket Guide comes with complete and comprehensive facts ALL about South Dakota. Riddles, recipes, and surprising facts make this guide a delight! South Dakota Basics section explores your state's symbols and their special meaning. South Dakota Geography section digs up the what's where in South Dakota. South Dakota History section is like traveling through time to some of South Dakota's greatest moments. South Dakota People section introduces you to famous personalities and your next-door neighbors. South Dakota Places section shows you where you might enjoy your next family vacation. South Dakota Nature section tells what Mother Nature gave to South Dakota. South Dakota Miscellaneous section describes the real fun stuff ALL about South Dakota.

“David Laskin deploys historical fact of the finest grain to tell the story of a monstrous blizzard that caught the settlers of the Great Plains utterly by surprise. . . . This is a book best read with a fire roaring in the hearth and a blanket and box of tissues near at hand.” — Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City “Heartbreaking. . . . This account of the 1888 blizzard reads like a thriller.” — Entertainment Weekly The gripping true story of an epic prairie snowstorm that killed hundreds of newly arrived settlers and cast a shadow on the promise of the American frontier. January 12, 1888, began as an unseasonably warm morning across Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, the weather so mild that children walked to school without coats and gloves. But that afternoon, without warning, the atmosphere suddenly, violently changed. One moment the air was calm; the next the sky exploded in a raging chaos of horizontal snow and hurricane-force winds. Temperatures plunged as an unprecedented cold front ripped through the center of the continent. By the next morning, some five hundred people lay dead on the drifted prairie, many of them children who had perished on their way home from country schools. In a few terrifying hours, the hopes of the pioneers had been blasted by the bitter realities of their harsh environment. Recent immigrants from Germany, Norway, Denmark, and the Ukraine learned that their free homestead was not a paradise but a hard, unforgiving place governed by natural forces they neither understood nor controlled. With the storm as its dramatic, heartbreaking focal point, The Children's Blizzard captures this pivotal moment in American history by tracing the stories of five families who were forever changed that day. David Laskin has produced a masterful portrait of a tragic crucible in the settlement of the American heartland. The P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Land of the Burnt Thigh tells the story of two sisters from a comfortable family in the Eastern United States, braving great perils to settle in the West. This book tells a simple yet inspiring tale of the hardships and adversity encountered by women in the pioneer culture of the 19th century. South Dakota was one of the States newly populated by adventurous peoples wishing to settle the great Western expanse. At the time, the federal government allowed settlers to keep a parcel of land for their own on the condition that they remained resident for eight consecutive months. The adverse weather, of snowstorms and blowing sands, tests the ability of the women who must endure these months in a spartan wooden shack. This edition of Land of the Burnt Thigh contains the original illustrations by Stephen J. Voorhies. "Interesting in its spirit and atmosphere, and it is told simply and well. . . This is an unusual record, well worth reading." - New York Times Book Review "Mrs. Kohl has told this story of South Dakota with a simplicity, a directness, and an understanding of its quietly heroic element which make her book an appealing as well as a significant contribution to the latter-day history of the pioneers." - Saturday Review