Ella Cara Deloria loved to listen to her family tell stories in the Dakota language. She recorded many American Indian peoples’ stories and languages and shared them with everyone. She helped protect her people’s language for future generations. She also wrote many stories of her own. Her story is a Minnesota Native American life.
Primary (ages 6-9)
Material appropriate for primary age groups
The Water Walker
This is the story of a determined Ojibwe Nokomis (Grandmother) Josephine-ba Mandamin and her great love for Nibi (water). Nokomis walked to raise awareness of our need to protect Nibi for future generations, and for all life on the planet. She, along with other women, men, and youth, have walked around all the Great Lakes from the four salt waters, or oceans, to Lake Superior. The walks are full of challenges, and by her example Josephine-ba invites us all to take up our responsibility to protect our water, the giver of life, and to protect our planet for all generations.
Charles Albert Bender: National Hall Of Fame Pitcher
Charles Albert Bender invented the slider. He was a World Series-winning pitcher and the first Minnesotan inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He grew up poor on a farm where he worked in the fields. He lived far away from his home and family while attending an Indian boarding school in Pennsylvania. Charles Albert Bender worked hard all his life and defined his success by the amount of effort he put into something. His story is a Minnesota Native American life.
Spotted Tail
This biography of Spotted Tail traces the life of the famous Lakota leader who expertly guided his people through a pivotal and tumultuous time in their nation’s history as they fought and then negotiated with the U.S. government. Spotted Tail is remembered for his unique leadership style and deep love for his people. Today, a university is named in his honor.
Delicious!: poems celebrating street food around the world
This poetry collection celebrates all the different kinds of street food from around the globe, introducing young readers to snacks they know and ones they’ve never heard of—showing that no matter where we live, we all appreciate a yummy treat!
Bloom
There was once a beautiful flower and a little girl who loved it. She talked to it every morning on her way to school. The owner of the flower shouted at her. The next day, the flower did not open. The angry man didn’t understand. He tried watering it. He tried giving it shade and he tried talking to it. He told it how wonderful he was, how important his job was and how lonely he felt. But it still refused to open. So, he asked the little girl. Why don’t you tell it how wonderful it is and how much you love it? she said. As he did so, his own heart filled with love. And the flower bloomed.
Coyote’s Soundbite: A poem for Our Planet
Excitement spreads like wildfire through the jungle. Earth-goddesses are planning a conference! From Australia to Antarctica, Amazon to Africa, goddesses will debate the burning environmental issues of our times . . . and bushy-tailed, smooth-talking Coyote wants in on the action. Can this infamous trickster come up with a plan to infiltrate the conference and leave a lasting legacy for our planet? A rip-roaring poem about protecting our environment.
Sakamoto’s Swin Club:How a Teacher Led an Unlikely Team to Victory
The inspirational and little-known story of a dedicated teacher who coached Hawaiian swimmers all the way to the Olympics, beautifully told in simple rhyme.When the children of workers on a 1930s Maui sugar plantation were chased away from playing in the nearby irrigation ditches, local science teacher Soichi Sakamoto had an idea. He offered to take responsibility for the children — and then he began training them how to swim. Using his science background, Sakamoto devised his own innovative coaching techniques: he developed a strict practice regime for the kids, building their strength and endurance by using the ditch water’s natural current. The children worked hard under the dedicated Sakamoto’s guidance, and their skills improved. They formed a swim club and began to dominate in swimming events around the world.
Napoleon Vs. The Bunnies
The renowned Napoleon Bonaparte faces an army of a different sort in this witty, unconventional telling of a true event in his life. Everyone knows the Battle of Waterloo was Napoleon Bonaparte’s most crushing defeat, right? Well, some beg to differ. It seems there was another less famous (though perhaps more humiliating) surrender in his past. Let’s call it Bunnyloo. In 1807, Napoleon had ordered his chief of staff to round up rabbits for a celebratory hunt, only, he collected domesticated rabbits, not wild ones. So, when the rabbits were released to begin the hunt, they didn’t run away. Instead, they ran straight at Napoleon and his hunting party. Now, some might think Napoleon — king overthrower, army commander, territory conqueror — would only laugh at an advancing battalion of cute, fluffy bunnies. Think again!
Anita And The Dragons
Anita watches the dragons high above her as she hops from one cement roof to another in her village in the Dominican Republic. But being the valiant princesa she is, she never lets them scare her. Will she be brave enough to enter the belly of the beast and take flight to new adventures?