In the event of me wanting to read more non fiction, I asked Nat for suggestions. I was so surprised that he recommended this book about Oklahoma City. I was slightly hesitant to read it, but check it out anyways along side many other non fiction books.

But I was so surprised how much I like this book. Sam Anderson, not a native Oklahoman, has a way with words to describe this city and the state that I originate from.

I have always looked at my home state with distain. Yes, I can find good things about it to tell others but anytime I do, it is always about the people I met there.

Oklahoma, like all of the US, is stolen land. The difference is that this land was free for people to take, as rewarded by the federal government. Which all accumulated to one event that most Oklahomans celebrate called the land run.

Growing up in Oklahoma, for most elementary students across the state, on the anniversary of the land run, the schools hold a mock land run. We build wagons, dress up, pack lunches, and we run when the buzzer goes off to “claim our land” with the group of people that the teachers designated as our family for the day.

I learned a very short history about this land run and the beginnings of my state. Nothing too in depth about it and of course, it never discussed anything bad that those white men did all those years ago in order to claim this land as their own.

Sam told me more than I ever thought I could have know about the beginning and entire history of my state. I learned about the struggle with surverying the land and several different groups attempts to make it a proper city. Learned about the political struggle Oklahoma had with the federal government to become a state and the fight for where the states capital will be. I learned about the men that came into Oklahoma and ran it behind the scenes to make it was it is.

I also learned a lot about the NBA team, the Oklahoma City Thunder. He originally came to Oklahoma back in 2012 as a sports journalist which is where his interest in the state originated.

Sam talked about Oklahoma’s hopes and dreams of getting professional sports teams to come to the state and what they did to accomplish that. He follows the 2012-2013 season of the hyper sucessful Thunder and their downfall after.

He discusses the traumatic event that all Oklahomans, and most of the US, have heard about. They 1995 bombing of our federal building that killed over 100 individuals and the healing the State went through after.

And last he talks about Oklahoma’s history with weather, and in depth, our tornados. The tornados that have made history for their strength and size and devastation.

I learned more about my state in this book than I ever did the the ever failing Oklahoma public school system. A part of this book made me love my state a little more than I ever had and gave me more of an appreciation for where I am from.

Oklahoma is the land of the Apache, Arapaho, Caddo, Comanche, Kiowa, Osage, and Wichita tribes