 
This is a typical problem with modern works; many writers may be conscious that mindsets and culture of the past was different but do not put this into thought as they judge those of a previous era; this is one major flaw of Black Elk’s Story in that it is easily noticed within the first chapters.  Judging Neihardt with the values of today is an unfortunate drawback to readers of Black Elk’s Story and one which many students of history would find a hindrance to Rice’s work. This aside, Julian Rice presents his argument showing skill as a writer and in a way understandable to the reader and this helps to overcome what readers might find discouraging about Black Elk’s Story.
In just simple terms of readability, Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks wins; not only is the book easier to follow but also tells the story of Black Elk much better than Rice is able to in Black Elk’s Story. As Rice weighs most of his argument on the events which Black Elk told Neihardt and how Neihardt transcribed those events, he seemingly ignores the actual telling of the life of Black Elk in great detail.  One could challenge the validity of titling Rice’s book Black Elk’s Story with the major focus on the interpretation of Black Elk’s life by other authors.  Flaws aside, Rice writes his work using not only the work of other biographers of Black Elk but also delves deeply into his research of the Sioux holy man; Black Elk’s Story quotes such items as oral interviews with Sioux and many other works concerning both Black Elk and other Sioux from the period of Black Elk’s life. (Rice 157).  Had Rice been able to interview Black Elk for his work, he would most certainly have produced a work far different from Black Elk Speaks, as his book shows how he would interpret the details told from Black Elk in a different manner than Neihardt transcribed them.  Rice even begins to discredit how Black Elk describes his story and that he uses “concepts and metaphors to make them [his stories] sympathetic and comprehensible to a Christian audience” (Rice 63).  
In comparison, Black Elk Speaks relies solely on Neihardt’s interviews with who had at the time become Nicholas Black Elk, a former Sioux holy man converted to Catholicism. Black Elk Speaks follows Black Elk’s life only to the massacre at Wounded Knee.  In a letter from Neihardt to Black Elk printed in the appendix of the 2004 paperback edition it seems that this is as Neihardt wished it to be as he wrote “I would want you to tell the story of your life beginning at the beginning and going straight though to Wounded Knee.” (Neihardt 212).  It could be assumed that Neihardt found this portion of Black Elk’s life the most important and interesting, and possibly thought it would be the most enjoyable to the reading public. 