Tunkasila—hear my plea. In Lakota country, Tunkasila is the creator, the mysterious one who brings all things into being. When Little Chief dreams of a white bear who has been tied to a tree and is bleeding at the neck, his grandfather says he must pray about this, that some day he will meet the animal of his dream—or something like it—and he will be asked to free the bear. Little Chief prays about this, sending his plea out to Tunkasila, and, when he later finds a white boy tied to a tree, his neck scabbed and bleeding, he knows this is Mato Ska, the white bear of his dream. Washaka is the story of two boys, one Lakota and one white, as they find brotherhood across a great cultural divide. The original story is based on Leon Hale’s dream. A Lakota man from the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, Hale has had a recurring dream his whole life. Sick with diabetes and cancer, he prays with his grandson to meet a writer who will put his dream into print. Such is the genesis of Jamie Lee’s new novel, Washaka—The Bear Dreamer.