It’s Native American Heritage month, and do we ever have recommendations for you! You can go to our site and see all our Native American titles, but we’re going to highlight a couple of them today.
Sky Dancers is a majestic story of the Mohawk steal workers who built the skyscrapers of New York City, as seen through the eyes of a young boy. On weekends, John Cloud lives with his parents on the reservation in upstate New York, but during the week his father is off in the city. When his mother takes him to New York, John Cloud is proud to see his father high above the city on a crossbeam of the Empire State Building. The Art Deco-influenced art and John Cloud’s independent mind make this book stand as tall as a skyscraper.
In Rattlesnake Mesa, seasoned storyteller EdNah New Rider Weber shares tales from her childhood, from the Eastern Navajo Reservation to the Phoenix Indian School. It’s a glimpse into a time many people would rather forget, when American Indian children were taken from their families and sent to government-run schools where they tried to make the children forget their tribes’ traditional ways. Rattlesnake Mesa shows us that they did not forget.
Taking us further back in history is Crazy Horse’s Vision. In the mid-1800s, Crazy Horse lead the Lakota against the United States army when the Indians’ rights were ignored. As a child, Crazy Horse was called Curly—until, facing the threat from settlers, he risked his own life to seek a vision of how he could help his people.
What have you been reading for Native American Heritage Month? What books by and/or about American Indians do you recommend, in November and the whole year round?
