Children's Literature

Drawing on childhood memories of Christmas in a New Mexican village, Momaday produces a poetic story that skilfully blends Christian and Native American traditions. On Christmas Eve, Tolo, a lonely mute boy, is drawn by the spirit of his beloved grandfather to a bonfire in the mountains, where he shares a 'circle of wonder and good will' with an elk, a wolf and an eagle. His heart fills with love for his family, for the Christ child and for all creation, and in this brief glimpse of the interconnectedness of all life his loneliness is banished forever. Features Momaday's singular, impressionistic artwork.

Frogs have been stolen, an earthquake rumbles, a village is in peril. To restore calm to her land, a girl must delve beneath the surface of a lake, deep into a spirit world. What she finds will thrill readers and introduce them to a classic hero's journey.

A beautifully illustrated book for children ages 6 and up relating the classic northwest coast myth telling how Raven, the trickster, freed the moon from the old fisherwoman's cedar chest and carried it to its rightful place in the heavens. Entrancingly retold from the female viewpoint by the celebrated author of Dreamspeaker and Daughters of Copper Woman.

Mama Crow and her hungry babies learn an important lesson in greed and gullibility from Mischievous Raven.

When Irene is removed from her First Nations family to live in a residential school, she is confused, frightened and terribly homesick. She tries to remember who she is and where she came from despite being told to do otherwise. When she goes home for summer holidays, her parents decide never to send her away again, but where will she hide and what will happen when her parents disobey the law?

A young mother, one of the many missing indigenous women, watches over her small daughter as she grows up without her nimama, experiencing important milestones - her first day of school, first dance, first date, wedding, first child - from afar. A free verse story of love, loss, and acceptance told in alternating voices. Missing Nimama shows the human side of a tragic set of circumstances. An afterword by the author provides a simple, age-appropriate context for young readers. Includes a glossary of Cree terms.

Eight-year-old Margaret Pokiak has set her sights on learning to read, even though it means leaving her village in the high Arctic. Faced with unceasing pressure, her father finally agrees to let her make the five-day journey to attend school, but he warns Margaret of the terrors of residential schools. At school Margaret soon encounters the Raven, a black-cloaked nun with a hooked nose and bony fingers that resemble claws. She immediately dislikes the strong-willed young Margaret. Intending to humiliate her, the heartless Raven gives gray stockings to all the girls -- all except Margaret, who gets red ones. In an instant Margaret is the laughingstock of the entire school. In the face of such cruelty, Margaret refuses to be intimidated and bravely gets rid of the stockings. Although a sympathetic nun stands up for Margaret, in the end it is this brave young girl who gives the Raven a lesson in the power of human dignity. Complemented by archival photos from Margaret Pokiak-Fenton’s collection and striking artworks from Liz Amini-Holmes, this inspiring first-person account of a plucky girl’s determination to confront her tormentor will linger with young readers.

With grace and drama, Abenaki poet and author Joseph Bruchac retells traditional native legends of ten of America’s most awe-inspiring natural landscapes. These wise stories, together with Thomas Locker’s luminous paintings, evoke the essential spiritual power of the earth. A full-color map charting the homelands of nearly two hundred North American tribes is included. “An excellent choice that will provoke both introspection and discussion.”--The Horn Book

Brrr! Coyote is always cold! That's because it's winter all year long. But Old Woman has something amazing called summer. It's tied up in a little bag in her tipi. Coyote and his friends Wolf, Moose, Elk, Stag, and Antelope make a plan to steal summer. But when Coyote grabs the bag, Old Woman's children chase after him. Will his plan work? Will everyone have a chance to share summer's warmth? Find out what happens in this fast-paced tale!

How did people come to inhabit the Earth? Were bones, collected in a basket, changed into people and scattered East, West, North, South? Perhaps animals formed the Earth from moss floating on a raft after a great flood. Or did the first woman fall through a hole in the sky to make her home on the back of a turtle? Did souls emerge from a dark underworld by climbing a grapevine? A wonderful collection of stories taken from Chuckchee, Cree, Mandan, Modoc, Mohawk, Osage, and Zuñi legends.

The heavens — the sun, the stars, and the moon — have inspired, intrigued, and mystified us from the beginning of time. We’ve always searched for ways to comprehend their beauty and their meaning. Mohawk artist and author C. J. Taylor has drawn from First Nations legends from across North America to present a fascinating collection of stories inspired by the night skies. The legends — Salish, Onondaga, Blackfoot, Netsilik (Inuit), Wasco, Ojibwa, and Cherokee — are by turns funny, beautiful, tragic, and frightening, but each one is infused with a sense of awe. From the Ojibwa legend of the great hunter, White Hawk, and his love for an unattainable maiden, or the Salish legend of a magical lake that is threatened when human beings turn greedy and lose their respect for its gifts and for the sun’s power, to the delightful Cherokee legend of Grandmother Spider who brought light to the world, this is an important collection that is enhanced by Taylor’s glorious paintings.

This Indian folktale explains why the wildcat has a stubby tail.

From Algonquin Indian folklore comes one of the most haunting, powerful versions of the Cinderella tale ever told. In a village by the shores of Lake Ontario lived an invisible being. All the young women wanted to marry him because he was rich, powerful, and supposedly very handsome. But to marry the invisible being the women had to prove to his sister that they had seen him. And none had been able to get past the sister's stern, all-knowing gaze. Then came the Rough-Face girl, scarred from working by the fire. Could she succeed where her beautiful, cruel sisters had failed?

A boy vanishes and goes to live with the seals, becoming one of them.

With the help of Beaver, Otter, and Muskrat, Wesakejack helps restore the earth after the Great Spirit has covered the world with a great flood.

Nokum Is My Teacher is the poetic story of a young aboriginal boy, posing questions to his grandmother, his "Nokum", about the wider world beyond the familiarity of their home and community. Through a series of questions, Nokum guides her grandson towards an understanding of his need to fit into and learn more about this large world beyond the reserve. Nokum offers her grandson a vision of a world he can enter through imagination and reading, while retaining respect for the ways of his people. By the conclusion of the book, the young grandson has learned many new ideas from his grandmother and discovered his own wisdom in dealing with the changes in his life.

Wild Berries is the beautiful tale of a young boy who spends a summer day picking wild blueberries with his grandmother. The Metis and Cree are indigenous peoples based across Canada and North America with a rich history and culture. Exploring the important tradition of berry-picking for Metis and Cree people, it also honours a unique, endangered language. Includes a recipe for a delicious blueberry pie.

Hunger strikes the people, and Raven is mysteriously happy. Fox decides to find out why. Follow Fox as he uses his cunning skills to solve the mystery.Includes an audio and interactive multimedia CD that you can play on a CD player, PC or Mac. An orthography chart is included.In Dogrib and English.

Retells the legend of Ka-ha-si, who acquires great strength and boldness and uses them to rescue his people in times of peril. Includes information on the customs and lifestyle of the Eskimos.

A lonely old woman adopts a polar bear and cares for him until he is grown. When the bear must leave the village, he continues to visit and provide for his "mother" in this gentle story.

When Akilak must travel a great distance to another camp to gather food, she thinks she will never be able to make it. With a little help from her grandmother’s spirit, and her own imagination to keep her entertained, Akilak manages to turn a long journey into an adventure. Even though she at first feels that she will never be able to reach her destination, she keeps her grandmother’s assurance that her "destination is not running away; it will be reached eventually” in mind and ends up enjoying the journey that at first seemed so daunting.

An intriguing book that interweaves anthropological evidence with Inuit traditional knowledge nbsp; Tuniit: Mysterious Folk of the Arctic introduces young readers to the huge, shy, powerful, ingenious race of Tuniit, the people who populated the Arctic even before modern Inuit. Young readers will be fascinated to discover the great impact these former giants of the Arctic had on some of the most well-known and practical aspects of Arctic life. By presenting the factual basis for many of the Inuit traditional beliefs about the Tuniit, this book provides readers with a blend of myth and fact.

A story drawn from Haida Indian literary tradition in which a boy falls from his canoe into a world of eighteen-foot tall humanlike creatures who welcome him and eventually return him to his village.

The story of how the animal people captured fire. A tribute to the Native Americans storytelling tradition. For children ages 4-8.

Cloudwalker, describing the creation of the rivers, is the second in a series of Northwest Coast legends by Roy Henry Vickers and Robert Budd. Astace, a young Gitxsan hunter, is intent on catching a group of swans with his bare hands. He is carried away by the birds' powerful wings and dropped in the clouds. With only a cedar box of water Astace wanders the clouds, growing weaker, stumbling and spilling the contents. When he finally returns to earth he discovers lakes, creeks, and rivers where there were none before. The Gitxsan rejoice at having him home, and name the new river they live alongside Ksien--"juice from the clouds."

These legends are still told by the Ktunaxa (pronounced tun-a-ha') or Kootenai people living in the Rocky Mountain region in Western Montana, Northern Idaho, and British Columbia. Coyote, or Skinkuc, is the main character of about half of these stories, which have been repeated by parents, grandparents, and elders since ancient times. nbsp; Through these stories, Ktunaxa children have learned never to waste any part of wild game or other food. They have learned respect for all of creation and a personal regard for all life. The experiences of Coyote show how greed, crooked dealings, and boundless appetite can cause trouble. The legends tell of the humanity, the spirit of all creation. nbsp; Illustrations by Ktunaxa artists appear on every page, adding to the tales' appeal for readers of all ages. Carefully translated into English, the legends offer a glimpse into the history of story-telling and Ktunaxa Indian tradition.

This retelling of a Navajo folktale explains how First Woman tried to write the laws of the land using stars in the sky, only to be thwarted by the trickster Coyote.

“We were wealthy from the water,” Mitch Smallsalmon says, and like all the tribal elders, he speaks to our understanding of the natural world and the consequences of change. In this book the wisdom of the elders is passed on to the young as the story of the Jocko River, the home of the bull trout, unfolds for a group of schoolchildren on a field trip. nbsp; The Jocko River flows through the Flathead Indian Reservation in northwestern Montana. For thousands of years the Salish and Pend d’Oreille Indians lived along its banks, finding food and medicine in its plants and fish, and in the game hunted on its floodplain. Readers of this story will learn, along with the students of Ms. Howlett’s class, about the history and culture of the river and its meaning in Native life, tradition, and religion. They will also discover the scientific background and social importance behind the Tribes’ efforts to restore the bull trout to its home waters. nbsp;

This is Ellen White's sequel to Kwulasulwut: Stories from the Coast Salish. The new volume features four more freshly written and translated English versions of traditional Salish legends adapted for children.

In this legend, Yamozha forgets his promise to his wife and as a result she turns into a giant beaver. He follows her all over Denedeh but is unable to catch her. This story tells of how this great medicine man shaped the land in the Tlicho region and its surrounding areas into what it is today.

In a time when darkness covered the land, a boy named Weget is born who is destined to bring the light. With the gift of a raven's skin that allows him to fly as well as transform, Weget turns into a bird and journeys from Haida Gwaii into the sky. There he finds the Chief of the Heavens who keeps the light in a box. By transforming himself into a pine needle, clever Weget tricks the Chief and escapes with the daylight back down to Earth.Vividly portrayed through the art of Roy Henry Vickers, Weget's story has been passed down for generations. The tale has been traced back at least 3,000 years by archeologists who have found images of Weget's journey in petroglyphs on the Nass and Skeena rivers. This version of the story originates from one told to the author by Chester Bolton, Chief of the Ravens, from the village of Kitkatla around 1975.

The language of the M tis, Michif is a combination of French and Cree with a trace of other regional languages. Once spoken by thousands of people across the prairies of Canada and the northern United States, Michif is now so little spoken that it might disappear within a generation. This alphabet book is part of a resurgence to celebrate and preserve the traditions of the M tis people. Here Michif and English words combine with images from M tis culture to introduce all generations to the unique Michif language.

Renowned Native painter Allen Sapp's inspired and stunning artwork beautifully complements this sweet story of a boy preparing for his first powwow. The young boy's Nokum -- his beloved grandmother -- guides him through the events of the day and helps him to understand what the singing and dancing are about. Award-winning author David Bouchard adds rhythmic and informative text based on remembrances from Allen Sapp's own Cree childhood. A portion of the royalties for The Song Within My Heart will be donated to the Indian Federated College.

The long-awaited sequel to BC children's classic Jason and the Sea Otter.This delightful story of a Nuu-chah-nulth boy explores First Nations traditions and values through the making of a canoe. Jason's first canoe is crushed during a storm, and he must replace it. Through Uncle Silas, he learns the traditional methods of canoe building - plus scores of stories and legends about his heritage. In an entertaining way, Jason's New Dugout Canoe also teaches the important lesson of patience, plus respect and reverence for nature and all its creatures.The story is packed with stunning, full-colour illustrations by Paul Montpellier, which one reviewer has described as "wonderfully clear and detailed, capturing both closeness to nature and a sense of continuity of Native tradition."

"The Indian in us must disappear, they say. It must be tamed." In the late 1880s, ten-year-old Young Bull is sent to boarding school to learn the white man's ways. Eve Bunting's sensitive and poetic text recreates an experience shared by many Native American children in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Irving Toddy's dramatic paintings capture the beauty and color of the world Young Bull has left behind- and the vivid memories he preserves in his ledger drawings.

Finalist for the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award and the Ruth Schwartz Award In just four days young Shi-shi-etko will have to leave her family and all that she knows to attend residential school. She spends her last days at home treasuring the beauty of her world -- the dancing sunlight, the tall grass, each shiny rock, the tadpoles in the creek, her grandfather's paddle song. Her mother, father and grandmother, each in turn, share valuable teachings that they want her to remember. And so Shi-shi-etko carefully gathers her memories for safekeeping. Richly hued illustrations complement this gently moving and poetic account of a child who finds solace all around her, even though she is on the verge of great loss -- a loss that native people have endured for generations because of the residential schools system.

Winner of the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award and finalist for the Governor General's Award: Children's Illustration This moving sequel to the award-winning Shi-shi-etko tells the story of two children's experience at residential school. Shi-shi-etko is about to return for her second year, but this time her six-year-old brother, Shin-chi, is going, too. As they begin their journey in the back of a cattle truck, Shi-shi-etko tells her brother all the things he must remember: the trees, the mountains, the rivers and the salmon. Shin-chi knows he won't see his family again until the sockeye salmon return in the summertime. When they arrive at school, Shi-shi-etko gives him a tiny cedar canoe, a gift from their father. The children's time is filled with going to mass, school for half the day, and work the other half. The girls cook, clean and sew, while the boys work in the fields, in the woodshop and at the forge. Shin-chi is forever hungry and lonely, but, finally, the salmon swim up the river and the children return home for a joyful family reunion.

This is an endearing story of a young Aboriginal foster child who is given a special gift by his foster mother. Her gift of warmth and thoughtfulness helps her young foster children by encouraging self-esteem, acceptance and love. Written as a simple story, it speaks of a positive foster experience.

When hard times befall the Athapaskan Indians living on the banks of the Yukon River, Nik, a young brave, sets out on a perilous journey to find the Great Shaman and get help for his people.

"Dream a little, Kulu, this world now sings a most beautiful song of you." This beautiful bedtime poem, written by acclaimed Inuit throat singer Celina Kalluk, describes the gifts given to a newborn baby by all the animals of the Arctic. Lyrically and tenderly told by a mother speaking to her own little "Kulu," an Inuktitut term of endearment often bestowed upon babies and young children, this visually stunning book is infused with the traditional Inuit values of love and respect for the land and its animal inhabitants. A perfect gift for new parents.

Depicts traditional lifestyles of children in five different tribes of North American Indians through vignettes set in a time almost two hundred years ago. The tribes are the Muskogee, Dakota, Huron, Tlingit, and Nootka.

In this poignant story, the counting rope is a metaphor for the passage of time and for a boy's emerging confidence in facing his blindness.

"I'm a stranger to horses and horses are strangers to me," admits the author/narrator at the beginning of this delightful tale of discovery. Members of the Dogrib nation from Canada, Van Camp's people use dogs instead of horses. Yet Van Camp has always been curious about horses. So he sets off on a playful search for "the most beautiful thing about horses," talking to family, friends, and even artist George Littlechild, who is a Plains Cree and knows something about horses. The answers Van Camp gets range from zany to profound: Horses can run sideways. Horses have secrets. Horses can always find their way home. Littlechild's bold and fanciful paintings perfectly capture Van Camp's playful vision of the world.

One of the loveliest of all carols, the Huron Carol was written by Father Jean de Br#65533;beuf, a French Catholic priest who settled among the Huron people in the early 1600s. Despite his missionary zeal, Br#65533;beuf was sensitive to the Hurons's beliefs. He wrote the carol in Huron and incorporated the Huron landscape and flora and fauna into the telling of the Christmas story. Ian Wallace brings his gorgeous landscapes and cultural sensitivity to this beautiful and unusual Christmas song, which makes a thoughtful gift for both children and adults.

In this introduction to the Anishinaabe tradition of totem animals, young children explain why they identify with different creatures such as a deer, beaver, or moose. Delightful illustrations show the children wearing masks representing their chosen animal, while the few lines of text on each page work as a series of simple poems throughout the book. In a brief author's note, Danielle Daniel explains the importance of totem animals in Anishinaabe culture and how they can also act as animal guides for young children seeking to understand themselves and others.

Once, an Ojibwa man whose wife had died raised three daughters alone. The two older girls were lazy and bad-tempered, and made their youngest sister do all the work. When the flames from the cooking fire singed her hair or burned her skin, they laughed and called her Sootface. While she worked, Sootface dreamed that one day she would find a husband. Then a mighty warrior with the power to make himself invisible decides to marry. Only a woman with a kind and honest heart could see him, and be his bride. Though her sisters ridicule her, Sootface sets off to try her luck, never looking back. Her courage and good nature bring her the husband she has longed for.

Long ago, the only berries on the tundra were hard, tasteless, little crowberries. As Anana watches the ladies complain bitterly while picking berries for the Fall Festival, she decides to use her magic to help. ""Atsa-ii-yaa (Berry), Atsa-ii-yaa (Berry), Atsaukina!"" (Be a berry!), Anana sings under the full moon turning four dolls into little girls that run and tumble over the tundra creating patches of fat, juicy berries: blueberries, cranberries, salmonberries, and raspberries. The next morning Anana and the ladies fill basket after basket with berries for the Fall Festival. Thanks to Anana, there are plenty of tasty berries for the agutak (Eskimo tee cream) at the festival and forevermore. As she did with THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE (praised by the New York Times Book Review, a San Francisco Chronicle Choice, and a Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Picture Book Award winner), Yup'ik Eskimo elder Betty Huffmon shared this folktale with author/illustrator Teri Sloat, who brings it to life with her delightful illustrations.

For decades, "scooping up" (taking) Indigenous chldren from their families for placement in foster homes or adoption, was commonplace. this is the story of one of those 20,000 children.