An extraordinary epic American novel by Joe Kidd
The Land Was Waiting for Them
In Tale of Twins, a Lakota family’s discovery beneath the Kansas plains opens a saga of kinship, Indigenous sovereignty, and the question of what it means to belong to the earth.
A Family at the Center
Life-defining choices bring siblings face to face with their inheritance and one another.
A World Beneath the Plains
An ancient impact reshaped a continent—and left a secret buried for generations.
“If we belong to the land, what do we owe to everything it has kept safe for us?”
A question at the heart of Tale of Twins
What the Land Has Been Holding
On a vast stretch of rural Kansas land, a Lakota family discovers that the ground beneath them holds an immense natural resource find—one that could change the course of human history. Its origins reach back to an ancient impact that transformed the continent’s geology, though generations lived above it without knowing what lay below.
For this family, the discovery is more than a claim to untold wealth. It tests the bonds between siblings, the structures built to protect their future, and their responsibility to the land to which they belong. Rooted in Lakota tradition, Joe Kidd’s Tale of Twins asks what becomes possible when Indigenous people stand at the center of their own story.
A Story Rooted in Land and Belonging
In Tale of Twins, Joe Kidd traces a family’s choices across generations of dispossession, stewardship, and return. The story begins with an 1874 railroad land grant in rural Kansas, where Heinrich Braun unknowingly acquired the rim of an ancient impact crater. Three generations later, his German-Lakota descendant William White Bear spends sixty years preparing for a question his mother posed when he was twelve: What will you do with what you have? His answer is to build the legal, financial, and human foundations that might allow a Lakota family to receive what lies beneath land to which they belong. Rooted in Lakota tradition, the saga treats Indigenous sovereignty as central to the family’s future—not an afterthought to an extraordinary discovery. Its mission is to tell an epic American story in which kinship, responsibility, and the land’s long history shape who gets to stand at the center.
From Family Choices to an Ancient World
Follow the twins from decisions that will change their lives to a discovery beneath Kansas that could change far more.
The Twins’ Defining Choices
Love, loyalty, and family responsibility test what each sibling is willing to risk—and what they hope to protect.
A Discovery Beneath the Plains
Under a million acres lies the legacy of an immense asteroid impact and a natural resource find beyond anything recorded in human history.
What the Land Asks
Lakota belonging and the land’s spiritual significance raise a question no single discovery can settle: what does it mean to receive what the earth holds?
The Seven-Volume Journey
Volume One — Revelation: The Story Begins
Book One — Revelation (Wówicakĥe Ečhúŋyapi)
Book Two — Discovery (Wóyaka)
Volume Two — New Beginnings and Long Journey
Book Three — New Beginnings (Piya Wiconi)
Book Four — Long Journey (Háŋska Oómani)
Volume Three — Amity and Sacred Hoop Restored
Book Five — Amity (Mitákuye Oyáśiŋ)
Book Six — Sacred Hoop Restored (Càgléška Wakà waštḗ)
Volume Four — The Star Road Home: A Tale of Twins Midquel
Volume Five — Guardians of the Cavern
The Sea, the Oil Lake, the Rock, and the Wakantankium
Volume Six — Amity
Sacred Care and the City
Volume Seven — Tale of Twins
The Hoop and the White Buffalo Calf
Begin with Volume One
Continue Through the Seven-Volume Saga
Joe Kidd: The Voice Behind the Saga
Joe Kidd is the pseudonym behind Tale of Twins, an epic American novel series that follows a Lakota family as they confront a discovery beneath the land to which they belong. Across the saga, Kidd brings the intimate choices of siblings and generations into conversation with Indigenous sovereignty, Lakota tradition, and the immense geological history of rural Kansas.
Kidd’s storytelling asks what becomes possible when a family long pushed from the center of its own story is finally positioned to shape what comes next. The extraordinary resource beneath their feet is not simply a prize to claim: it is the beginning of questions about responsibility, kinship, and the difference between owning land and belonging to it.
“What does it mean to belong to land rather than own it?”
Begin the Tale of Twins Saga
Start with Revelation and follow the story as it unfolds across the volumes. Meet the family at its heart, discover what lies beneath their land, and see how one astonishing find opens a far larger journey of sovereignty, belonging, and choice.