Materials from United States of America
A young Korean girl and her family find it difficult to learn English and adjust to life in America.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 1
This book has been included in WOW’s Language and Learning: Children’s and Young Adult Fiction Booklist. For our current list, visit our Booklist page under Resources in the green navigation bar.
Amaroq is a lively Eskimo boy who fives at the top of the world with his best friend, Nutik, the wolf pup. Amaroq was named after a great wolf leader; Nutik is the wolf leader’s grandpup. The boy and the wolf pup are like brothers.One day Amaroq and Nutik want to play football, but their ball has disappeared. What shall they do? Listening to and observing Nutik’s wolf talk, Amaroq follows him outside. The two friends wander out onto the tundra, where there are no trees, no paths, and no landmarks to help them find their way home again. Amaroq is afraid they are lost, but then he remembers what the great wolf leader he was named after would do. By observing nature and following what it says, Amaroq and Nutik are safe again-but not before finding a surprise for both of them!Amaroq and Nutik’s adventure follows the first picture book about them, Nutik, the Wolf Pup, and continues the Arctic saga about these characters originally drawn from Julie’s Wolf Pack, sequel to the Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves.
As a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Nguyen is filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity, and in the pre-PC-era Midwest (where the Jennifers and Tiffanys reign supreme), the desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American food. More exotic- seeming than her Buddhist grandmother’s traditional specialties, the campy, preservative-filled “delicacies” of mainstream America capture her imagination. In Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, the glossy branded allure of Pringles, Kit Kats and Toll House Cookies becomes an ingenious metaphor for Nguyen’s struggle to become a “real” American, a distinction that brings with it the dream of the perfect school lunch, burgers and Jell- O for dinner, and a visit from the Kool-Aid man. Vivid and viscerally powerful, this remarkable memoir about growing up in the 1980s introduces an original new literary voice and an entirely new spin on the classic assimilation story.
Tash’s parents die and she must learn to take care of herself.
The everyday lives of the Athabaskan Indians come to life in the story of Anna’s family and their annual journey to a salmon fish camp as they remember the ways of their people by listening to Grandmother’s wise words.
Glen Jackson, Jr., an eleven-year-old Ojibway Indian in northern Minnesota, goes with his father to harvest wild rice, the sacred food of his people.
A young bison growing up on the plains in the late 1800s faces peril at the hands of soldiers, who are destroying the great buffalo herds as a way to control native tribes. He is befriended by a native warrior and a white hunter who try to save him and his herd from annihilation.
A board book to use with your child, a friendly introduction to some basic Ojibwe words.
On September 4, 1805, in the upper Bitterroot Valley of what is now western Montana, more than four hundred Salish people were encamped, pasturing horses, preparing for the fall bison hunt, and harvesting chokecherries as they had done for countless generations. As the Lewis and Clark expedition ventured into the territory of a sovereign Native nation, the Salish met the strangers with hospitality and vital provisions, while receiving comparatively little in return. For the first time, a Native American community offers an in-depth examination of the events and historical significance of their encounter with the Lewis and Clark expedition. The result is a new understanding of the expedition and its place in the wider context of U.S. history. Through oral histories and other materials, Salish elders recount the details of the Salish encounter with Lewis and Clark-their difficulty communicating with the strangers through multiple interpreters and consequent misunderstanding of the expedition’s invasionary purpose, their discussions about whether to welcome or wipe out the newcomers, their puzzlement over the black skin of the slave York, and their decision to extend traditional tribal hospitality and gifts to the guests. What makes The Salish People and the Lewis and Clark Expedition a startling departure from previous accounts of the Lewis and Clark expedition is how it depicts the arrival of non-Indians-not as the beginning of history, but as another chapter in a long tribal history. Much of this book focuses on the ancient cultural landscape and history that had already shaped the region for millennia prior to the arrival of Lewis and Clark. The elders begin their vivid portrait of the Salish world by sharing creation stories and the traditional cycle of life. The book then takes readers on a cultural tour of the Native trails that the expedition followed. With tribal elders as our guides, we now learn of the Salish cultural landscape that was invisible to Lewis and Clark. The Salish People and the Lewis and Clark Expedition also brings new clarity to the profound upheaval of the Native world in the century prior to the expedition’s arrival, as tribes in the region were introduced to horses, European diseases, and firearms. The arrival of Lewis and Clark marked the beginning of a heightened level of conflict and loss, and the book details the history that followed the expedition: the opening of Salish territory to the fur trade, the arrival of Jesuit missionaries, the establishment of Indian reservations, the non-Indian development of western Montana, and more recently, the revival and strengthening of tribal sovereignty and culture. Conveyed by tribal recollections and richly illustrated, The Salish People and the Lewis and Clark Expedition not only sheds new light on the meaning of the expedition, but also illuminates the people who greeted Lewis and Clark, and despite much of what followed, thrive in their homeland today.
A long time ago, fire belonged only to the animals in the land above, not to those on the earth below. Curlew, keeper of the sky world, guarded fire and kept it from the earth. Coyote, however, devised a clever plan to steal fire, aided by Grizzly Bear, Wren, Snake, Frog, Eagle, and Beaver. These brave and resourceful animal beings raided the land above and risked all to steal fire from Curlew. Beaver Steals Fire is an ancient and powerful tale springing from the hearts and experiences of the Salish people of Montana. Steeped in the rich and culturally vital storytelling tradition of the tribe, this tale teaches both respect for fire and awareness of its significance, themes particularly relevant today. This unforgettable version of the story is told by Salish elder Johnny Arlee and beautifully illustrated by tribal artist Sam Sandoval.