Winner of the Frankfurt eBook Award for Best Nonfiction Book

In Native American tradition, a warrior gained glory by touching his enemy in battle and living to tell the tale. They called it...

COUNTING COUP

Freelance journalist Larry Colton traveled to the Crow Indian reservation in Montana to do a story on high-school basketball. There he met Sharon LaForge, a seventeen-year-old Native American basketball player who lit up the gym with talent, spirit, and a fierce will to win...a young woman engaged in a heroic struggle not only to lead her team to the state finals but to save herself from a life of poverty and loss.

In this brilliant account, Colton takes us through one frantic, pressure-packed basketball season with Sharon. Through her eyes, and those of the Indians and whites around her, we witness a harrowing battle with alcoholism, a shattered family, racial conflict, and perhaps the most daunting challenge of all: growing up. Set on the banks of the Little Big Horn River, Counting Coup is Sharon's unforgettable story-and the story of today's forgotten Americans fighting for the victories that count.