Indigenous

Rabbit’s Snow Dance

A hip and hilarious fable perfect for wintertime

Rabbit loves the winter. He knows a dance, using a traditional Iroquois drum and song, to make it snow–even in springtime! The other animals of the forest don’t want early snow, but Rabbit doesn’t listen to them. Instead, he sings and dances until more and more snow falls. But how much snow is too much, and will Rabbit know when to stop?

This stylish and oh-so-funny story is a modern take on a traditional Native American fable from master storytellers Joseph and James Bruchac.

The Horse And The Plains Indians

The image of a Native American on horseback has become ingrained in the American consciousness. But the Plains Indians and the horse were not always inseparable. Once, Native Americans used dogs to help carry their goods, and even after the Spaniards introduced the horse to the Americas, horses were considered so valuable that the Spanish would not allow the Indians to have them. But soon horses escaped from Spanish settlements, and Native Americans quickly learned how valuable the horse could be as a hunting mount, beast of burden, and military steed. Follow the story of this transformative partnership, starting in the early sixteenth century and continuing today.

The Man Who Dreamed of Elk-Dogs

The story of how horses first appeared to the tribes of the American Plains. In his final collection of “stories from the tipi,” Goble features a collection of 23 traditional stories from the Blackfoot, Lakota, Assiniboin, Pawnee, and Cheyenne nations. This book features a foreword by Lauren “Candy” Waukau-Villagomez, an educator and author of works on the oral traditions and storytelling of the North American tribes.

The Hopi

Provides a brief description of the territorial homeland of the Hopi people. The chapters describe society, homes, food, clothing, crafts, family, children, myths, war, and contact with Europeans. Readers meet Yokiuma, whose personal mission was to preserve the Hopi culture.

The Navajo

Presents a brief introduction to the Navajo Indians including information on their society, homes, food, clothing, crafts, and life today.

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Far off the coast of California looms a harsh rock known as the island of San Nicholas. Dolphins flash in the blue waters around it, sea otter play in the vast kep beds, and sea elephants loll on the stony beaches.

Here, in the early 1800s, according to history, an Indian girl spent eighteen years alone, and this beautifully written novel is her story. It is a romantic adventure filled with drama and heartache, for not only was mere subsistence on so desolate a spot a near miracle, but Karana had to contend with the ferocious pack of wild dogs that had killed her younger brother, constantly guard against the Aleutian sea otter hunters, and maintain a precarious food supply.

More than this, it is an adventure of the spirit that will haunt the reader long after the book has been put down. Karana’s quiet courage, her Indian self-reliance and acceptance of fate, transform what to many would have been a devastating ordeal into an uplifting experience.