 |
|
|
Salinas, Raul, and Jennifer Shen, eds., Seeds of Struggle, Songs
of Hope: Poetry of Emerging Youth y Sus Maestros del Movimiento.
1997, b/w illustrations.
It is never too early
to expose children to good poetry. This excellent volume, done
by the young people and their teachers
who participated
in El Centro
de la Raza’s summer youth leadership conference’s writing
project in 1997, is a companion to ¡Word Up! Hope for
Youth Poetry from El Centro de la Raza (1992). In Spanish, English
and Spanglish,
the poems
in ¡Word Up! and the poems and artwork in Seeds of
Struggle are
an example of what our youngsters are capable of, with a little encouragement.
pb 13.00
|
|
|
Skonaganleh:ra/Sylvia Maracle (Mohawk), Onkwehonwe-Neha.
1994, color illustrations.
A history of the Haudenosaunee
(Iroquois) people, simply told and beautifully illustrated.
pb 6.00
|
|
|
Slipperjack, Ruby (Ojibwe), Little Voice. 2002, b/w illustrations.
She’s just lost her
father. Kids make fun of her green eyes. She’s got a boy’s name.
And she feels like her mother,
with two younger kids to care
for, is too too busy for her. When she gets to spend the summer with
her grandma, an elder and a healer in a small northern
Ontario comny, 14-year-old
Ray learns how to paddle a canoe, put up and take down camp, hunt
fish, trap, and harvest berries and herbs. Under the careful
tutelage of
her grandma, “Naens”—“Little Voice”—also
learns about silence and compassion and watching her
hands grow older. She is
becoming someone who will one day be a “strong green-eyed
medicine woman”—someone who knows that there are different kinds
of school, someone who can take the knowledge of the past and bring
it into
the fututre,
someone who is finding her voice.
pb 9.00
|
|
|
Smith, Cynthia Leitich (Muskogee), Rain Is Not My Indian Name.
2001.
Written in the first
person, this contemporary young adult novel is about a mixed-blood
14-year-old coming to terms
with her mother’s sudden death,
and more recently with the sudden death of her best friend, her might-have-been
boyfriend. There is Indian humor in this beautifully written and compassionate
book, and there are no vision quests, no dreamcatchers, and no mixed-blood
identity crises (“walking in two worlds”) that white authors
love to write about.
hc 17.00
|
|
| From
Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve (Lakota) |
 |
|
 The Chichi Hoohoo Bogeyman. 1975, b/w illustrations by Nadema Agard (Cherokee/Sihasapa Lakota).
Sneve may have been the first to do a story about modern Native children from a Native perspective. The Chichi Hoohoo Bogeyman is about three little girls—cousins—visiting their grandparents one summer. Mary Jo lives nearby, Cindy and her family are from Pine Ridge. Lori is the youngest. Her Mom is Hopi, and the family is in the process of relocating from the Mesa to Aberdeen, near her father’s new job. The trouble starts when Mary Jo’s older brother screams “Look out! A chichi!” behind the girls in the evening twilight, scaring them half out of their wits. This leads to a real ghost story, and a later discussion between the cousins of chichis (Lakota), hoohoos (Hopi) and the bogeyman (Anglo): a chichi hoohoo bogeyman. Cindy and Mary Jo find this screamingly funny. Lori is not so sure.
Cindy is a pistol, always ready to lead the others into trouble. Lori is the most timid; Mary Jo, a common-sensical kind of kid, lands somewhere in the middle. Eventually, Cindy gets herself and her cousins into some real trouble when they do something truly frightening—for which she swears Lori and Mary Jo to secrecy. Neither girl is comfortable with this, and it all comes to a head in a night of nightmare and hysterics: Cindy runs away.
Sneve has created a close-knit, loving family. Everything is sorted out in the end, and the chichi hoohoo bogeyman turns out to be something utterly different. The girls have done something they were told not to. One might say this was a cautionary tale for them; when somebody tells you not to do something, there might be a good reason for it. Agard’s drawings suit the nature of the story, delineating the character of each girl, and illustrating the family as a whole sorting the mess into healing.
pb 10.00 |
|
|
The Trickster and the
Troll. 1997.
Virginia’s husband
is Norwegian, and their children call themselves “Sioux-wegian.” It
is for her grandchildren that she wrote this poignant tale of the friendship
between Iktomi and the Troll, who, with their respective humans, suffer
great loss in a hostile changing environment.
pb 13.00
|
|
|
When Thunders Spoke.
1974, b/w illustrations.
Norman Two Bull, a
15-year-old who is impatient with the old ways, finds an ancient
relic that has power to make things
happen. With his grandfather’s
encouragement, Norman learns that things are not always what they seem,
and that the supernatural is to be respected.
pb 10.00
|
|
|
|
 Spooner, Michael,
Last Child. 2005; Mandan.
“Last Child,” also known as “Rosie,” a Mandan child
of mixed parentage, lives with her mothers’ people at Mitutanka
and visits with her father when his ship comes in. Fluent in
Mandan, English and French, she is smart and practical, effortlessly
navigating
both Indian and white societies, and quickly realizing when she
has made a cultural faux pas: “Muskrat Woman wouldn’t
speak to me because I’d argued with her again. She was
certain that I was either white or feebleminded—who else
would contradict her so often?” As the tragic 1837 smallpox
epidemic devastates Last Child’s village, young readers
will feel the pain and anguish brought by the white man’s
disease that threatens to obliterate everyone in its path. When
nearly all of her relatives
have died and her father has given in to the ravages of alcohol,
Last Child reunites with her frail grandmother, who soon is taken
from her as well. Now, Last Child can join the remnants of her
people
and live with their Hidatsa cousins at Like-a-Fishhook Village,
or Rosie can go with her father to St. Louis. In an epilogue
that takes
place eight years later, readers will find out which road she
chose and why.
hc 17.00
|
|
|
Steltzer, Ulli, Building an Igloo. 1981, b/w photos by the author.
Accomplished photographer
Steltzer accompanies Tookillkee Kiguktak and one of his sons,
Jopee, as they build an igloo. This
is a beautiful and simple
book about today’s people living and adapting as people always do: “It is
evening. Father and son settle down inside. They look out on the
frozen ocean.
Tomorrow will be a day of hunting.”
pb 7.00
|
|
| From Luther Standing Bear (Lakota) |
|
|
Land of the Spotted Eagle.
(1933), 1978.
“We did not
think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills,
the winding streams with tangled growth, as ‘wild.’ Only
to the white man was nature a ‘wilderness’ and only
to him was land ‘infested’ with ‘wild’ animals
and ‘savage’ people. To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful
and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery.
Not until the hairy man from the east came and with brutal frenzy
heaped injustices upon us and the families we loved was it ‘wild’ for
us. When the very animals of the forest began fleeing from his
approach, then it was that for us the ‘Wild West’ began.”
pb 13.00
|
|
|
My Indian Boyhood. (1931),
1988, b/w illustrations.
Standing Bear writes
about his boyhood—from his birth in the 1860s,
to his first buffalo hunt—in a way that young readers will find
not only interesting, but exciting as well. This first-person account
of Standing
Bear’s traditional childhood is an antidote to the stereotypic
children’s books written about the “Sioux” from the
perspective of outsiders.
pb 12.00
|
|
|
Stories of the Sioux. (1934),
1988, b/w illustrations.
These 20 stories of
animal relatives and magic, of courageous women and men, of wise
grandparents, of the beauty of everyday
life are
told by Standing
Bear as he learned them from his elders. “These stories were
not told,” Standing
Bear says, “with the idea of forcing the children to learn,
but for pleasure, and they were enjoyed by young and old alike.” So
enjoy them.
pb 10.00
|
|
|
|
Sterling, Shirley (Salish), My Name is Seepeetza. 1992.
Seepeetza, Tootie,
McSpoot—those are the names her family
call her. Martha Stone is the name she is called at the
Indian residential school,
where her world is governed by a forced denial of all that being Indian
means to her. In diary form, this is a moving account of
one of the most blatant
expressions of racism in the history of North America.
pb 8.00
|
|
|
Swentzell, Rina (Tewa), Children of Clay. 1992, color photos.
As Clay-Old-Woman,
the spirit of the clay, watches over their work, Gia (Mother)
Rose and her family—children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren—share
in the tradition of digging, shaping, painting and firing the brown-orange
clay.
pb 7.00
|
|
|
TallMountain, Mary (Koyukon), The Light on the Tent Wall.
1990.
Mary TallMountain’s
poems are full of heat and fire, simplicity and compassion, beauty
and wisdom.
pb 12.00
|
|
|
Tapahonso, Luci (Diné), A Breeze Swept Through. 1987,
b/w illustrations.
These are lovely poems,
lyrical and strong, with the beauty that comes from knowing who
you are forever.
pb 8.00
|
|
From
Tehanetorens/Ray Fadden (Mohawk) |
|
|
Legends of the Iroquois. 1998, b/w illustrations.
This collection of
familiar Iroquois stories, told by elder and tribal scholar Tehanetorens,
is made unique by the
fact that they are also told in pictographs.
There is a short essay on picture writing, and many pages of translations
of the symbols themselves, including those for each of the clans
of the Six Nations. The non-pictograph illustrations, by
Mohawk artist Kahionhes/John
Fadden, expand the meaning and power of the stories.
pb 10.00
|
|
|
Roots of the Iroquois. 2000, b/w illustrations by Kahionhes/John
Fadden (Mohawk).
Contrary to textbook
dogma, the roots of American democracy lay not in European political
and religious thought but
in the ideals
of
the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)
Confederacy. Those ideals—freedom of speech, freedom of belief, equality
for all, and the right to elect and remove government officials—are
mirrored in the principles of the U.S. Constitution. In Roots of the Iroquois,
elder and tribal scholar—and, first of all, storyteller—Tehanetorens
traces the origins of the Iroquois Confederacy, its history with
the white settlers,
and how the new American government tried to weaken and destroy it.
Along with Kaianerekowa Hotinonsionne/The Great Law of Peace of the Longhouse
People and Wampum Belts of the Iroquois, this book is must
reading for anyone learning (or teaching) about the U.S. Constitution.
pb 10.00
|
|
|
Wampum Belts of the Iroquois. 1999, b/w photos and illustrations.
With the direction
of and encouragement from Mohawk elder and tribal scholar Tehanetorens,
the students of the Onkwehonwe
Neha/Indian Way School at
Akwesasne Mohawk Nation made authentic, exact copies of the sacred
Haudenosaunee wampum belts and strings. Here, Tehanetorens
and his students interpret
the belts and set them in the context of the history of the Haudenosaunee
people. This important book is a must in any classroom in which the
U.S. Constitution is taught.
pb 10.00
|
|
| From Tim Tingle (Choctaw) |
|
|
Spirits Dark and Light: Supernatural
Tales from the Five Civilized Tribes. 2006.
“You might see yellow
knots on a floating backwater log,” Tingle cautions. “Better
not reach for it, it might have teeth. Maybe it looks
like a pile of leaves lying on the ground. Better not step on
it, it might have
fangs. Maybe it seems like a bunch of moss hanging from a tree
limb. Better not touch it, it might have claws.” It might be Naloosa
Falaya. Here, Tingle seamlessly weaves elements from traditional
stories of the Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole peoples
into tellings that are eerie, gruesome, frightening, poignant—and
just plain satisfying. In these stories in which the world of the
spirits and the natural world come together, terrible witches and
conjurers stalk the careless, the dead offer advice to the living,
greed is properly punished, and heroism takes many forms. Tingle’s
flow and timing are superb. Young readers will feel like he’s
talking directly to them. Wonderful for reading aloud at a campfire
or in a darkened room.
hc 16.00
|
|
|
Walking the Choctaw Road: Stories from
Red People Memory. 2003, b/w photos.
Tingle’s twelve stories tell of ordinary people
doing extraordinary things as magic brings healing, shape shifters
test bravery, tragedy
leads to courage and true friendships develop in the worst of
places. Choctaw women make magic so that enslaved people can cross
Bok Chitto and get to freedom’s side. The medicine and wisdom of
an elder woman—“keep working to the good”—give
a boy the courage to defeat a shape-shifter. A youngster carries
the memories of
his mother, and her bones, as he continues with the okla nowa,
people walking, on the Trail of Tears. A widowed woman with a healing
stone shows a young boy that you don’t have to be blood to be family.
A child at an Indian residential school, unable to attend his brother’s
funeral finds that “wherever you are, you can always find
one decent person.” A twenty-year war between father and
son is resolved, and when Mawmaw regains her sight, there is no
more Saltypie.
These are evocative tellings by and for the Okla Homma, red people,
clay people “kneaded out of this place,” people
who, as Tingle says, “reached across boundaries to offer
a hand to those in need.”
Written in a down-to-earth, accessible style, these stories will
appeal to cynical young people who don’t especially like to read.
hc 17.00, pb 11.00, cd 25.00 |
|
| From Gerald Rancourt Tsonakwa (Abenaki) and Yolaikia Wapitaska (Abenaki) |
|
|
Seven Eyes,
Seven Legs: Supernatural Stories of the Abenaki. 2001, color
photos.
“Our lives are long enough to come in two parts,” Tsonakwa begins. “The
first arrives with mistakes and follies from which we are forced to learn.
The second is the benefit of learning from the first.” These traditional
and contemporary stories—from the time when the world was young and the
animals could talk with each other to the present time when we must be reminded
how to
communicate—are for learning from, for thinking deeply about, and for
rereading, over and over. The photographs of Tsonakwa’s and Yolaikia’s
awesome sculptures—primarily of bone, stone, and wood—are a perfect
complement to Tsonakwa’s tellings, some of which will leave readers
and listeners gasping with fright.
pb 17.00 |
|
|
Welcome the Caribou Man. 1992, b/w and color photos.
In this companion to Seven Eyes, Seven Legs,
sometimes the words are Tsonakwa’s, sometimes they belong
to the spirits. “The
first time I saw a human,” Caribou Man relates, “he
frightened me…Later, when I became accustomed to him, I
learned a lot about his world….The great secret in the
world of men is that the world of spirits exists. The great secret
in the world of spirits
is that there is no secret.” The eyes of younger and
older readers will go from word to sculpture and back again.
The word
describes the art; the art illuminates the word.
pb 11.00
|
|
|
|
Wallis, Velma (Gwich’in), Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of
Betrayal, Courage and Survival. 1993, b/w illustrations.
This story, of starvation
times, tells how Ch’idzigyaak and Sa’ were left behind, how they
found the will in themselves
to survive, and what the People
learned from what they had done.
hc 15.00, pb 13.00
|
|
|
Wittstock, Laura Waterman (Ojibwe), Ininatig’s Gift of Sugar:
Traditional Native Sugarmaking. 1993, color photos.
The story of Ininatig,
the sugar maple, reminds people of the importance of the lifesaving
maple sugar. Ininatig’s Gift of Sugar follows
the sugar-making process from tapping the trees and collecting sap
to making syrup, candy, and sugar—and giving thanks.
hc 20.00, pb 7.00
|
|
|
Wolfe, Alexander (Salteaux), Earth Elder Stories.
1988, 2002, b/w illustrations.
Alexander
Wolfe’s grandfather was Earth Elder, and Wolfe was the keeper
of his family’s stories. These stories tell how Earth Elder’s
people lived on the land in the 1800s and survived a smallpox and flu
epidemic, how his family participated in the signing of the treaties,
how they received
the gift of the grass dance and were forced to stop doing the ran dance,
how they were confined to reservations and made a commitment to carry
out the last horse raid. Legend and prophecy are a good part of spoken
history,
and Wolfe carried out his responsibility to pass these stories on to
the next generations.
pb 13.00 |
|
|
Yamane, Linda (Rumsien Ohlone), Weaving a California Tradition:
A Native American Basketmaker. 1996, color photos.
In this beautiful photoessay,
you will meet Carly Tex, who is Western Mono, and her family,
as she learns from her elders
the
elements of weaving. “I
hope that through their story,” Linda writes, “you
will learn how much time it takes to gather the plants used in basketry
and
prepare them for weaving. I hope you will learn that making baskets
is not an easy
job—it’s a complicated one. But the job is also filled with joy,
for as basketweavers, we work together. We spend time with the plants.
We learn
from the Earth.” This book should be in every classroom where
children are supposed to learn about “California Indians.”
hc 20.00
|
 |
|
Yazzie, Evangeline Parsons (Diné), Dzáni Yázhi Naazbaa’/Little Woman Warrior Who Came Home: A Story of the Navajo Long Walk. Color paintings by Irving Toddy (Diné), Navajo translation by the author, 2005.
Children, today more than ever, need to know the truths of history, even—no, especially—the ugly parts, the parts often deemed “not for children.” One of these truths is what has come to be known as the “Navajo Long Walk.” In 1863-1864, U.S. soldiers launched a scorched-earth offensive against Diné Bekayah, grabbed up some 8,000 Navajo women and men, children and old people, and marched them off to a barren concentration camp known as Bosque Redondo (Fort Sumner). On this death march of several hundred miles, more than 3,000 died of cold and starvation or were killed—the soldiers shot pregnant women and elderly people and all others who couldn’t keep up.
Dzáni Yázhi Naazbaa’ (Little Woman Warrior Who Came Home) is the young Naabeehó (Navajo) girl who survives the Long Walk and the four-year incarceration at Fort Sumner. Yazzie, to whom these family stories have been passed down, spares little detail—the terror of being forcibly taken from home; seeing the elderly and sick being shot as they fall behind; experiencing crop failure and having to rely on foreign, rotten and bug-infested rations; stealing food from the soldiers’ horses to allay starvation. But throughout the torture, persecution, hunger and homesickness, the parents and elders feed the children with perseverance and hope that come from the clan system and the prayers and stories, and the knowing that the land, culture and community will survive. And, indeed, Little Woman Warrior does come home. Toddy’s paintings, especially those of the land and the frightened children, perfectly complement this bilingual story, in Navajo and English, of endurance and strength.
hc 18.00 |
|
|
Zitkala-Sa/Gertrude Bonnin (Yankton), American Indian Stories.
1979, 1985.
A collection of essays,
many of which were published in the very early 1900s, American
Indian Stories is one of the first books to be written by a Native
woman without the “aid” of a white editor, interpreter,
or ethnographer. These are stories from Red Bird’s life, in Red Bird’s
words. They are
a gift
to young readers today.
pb 13.00
|
|
| |
|
|
|
