With ten well known authors:
Joy Harjo, Sherman Alexie,
Cynthia Leitich Smith, Richard Van Camp, Linda Hogan, Joseph Bruchac,
Louise Erdrich, Greg Sarris, Lee Francis, and Susan Powers, a reader
could not go wrong when choosing this wonderful book!
Each author offers an experience seemingly from their childhood
that resonates within Native readers.
The reader may not have experienced the exact experience but will
nod their head knowingly and in agreement with each piece they read.
The stories are not of forced assimilation, but of escape from the
realities of a complicated life that stems from genocide, stereotypes,
assimilation, annihilation, alcoholism, poverty and the resilience of
Native peoples.
Joy
Harjo writes about a boarding school experience of a young woman.
She was shipped to boarding school as to not be a bother to her
step-father, while there she made friends, and was able to establish
herself as respectable and reliable; even if she drank on occasion.
Sherman
Alexie writes of the slow painful separation and divorce of
parents, and the needs of a young boy to be seen/heard/taught by his
father. A teenage boy finds
that his dad remembers only the good things from a bad marriage and his
mom tries to forget and each deals with the loneliness that follows.
Cynthia
Leitich Smith shows an example of everyday struggles Native people
have with stereotypes, and the pain it causes on all sides.
The young man in the story deals with his issues of not looking
like the stereotypical Indian and yet at the same time knows the drudgery
of being a “real live Indian” which makes you an automatic expert for
students and their papers.
Richard
Van Camp gives us a glimpse into the life of addiction, loss, and
the struggle to overcome poverty by showing us Kevin Garner’s dreams of
being a teacher and his struggle to overcome choices available to him as
he was becoming an adult.
Linda
Hogan demonstrates the pride, generosity and determination of our
elders through her tale of Grandma. An
elder living on the reservation selling eggs and grain to make ends meat,
when two of her grandchildren come for a visit.
Upon their arrival they witness the strength and wisdom of grandma
as she refuses the hand outs from a limo riding high heel clad woman and
offers her a fuzz covered peppermint candy from her apron pocket.
Joseph
Bruchac tells of mentorship’s and family ties that strengthen
and build self esteem. Uncle
Tommy a, seventy year old, Swenoga Indian that is an uncle by marriage
tutors a young Abenaki in costumes of the tribe and edits his stories on
trips to places like Lake George where he was hired to bring the ice and
he did.
Louise
Erdrich shocks us with a touch of adolescent racism, anger, and
lust as a young man heads to town to sell his kill.
He thinks of the girl he wants and looses himself in thought, and
doesn’t notice the youngest daughter of the horse thieving drunken
Lazarree’s, Marie running toward him. He assumes she has stolen the
Nun’s linen and tries to make her return it and in the struggle realizes
that she is a woman. In
embarrassment he offers her his kill and in pity.
Greg Sarris lets us see into
the urban Indian family, some of the individual ways that people cope with
one another, themselves and other abuses.
Jasmine decides to live with her cousin Ruby and crazy Auntie Faye
rather than live with her own mother and grandmother. Everything seems to
be okay until Jasmine’s mom steals Auntie Faye’s new boyfriend, but
that’s when the real trouble begins.
Lee
Francis shares a story of realization, oral tradition, and ways
things are passed from one generation to the next.
A young adult sits and listens to a storyteller weave a tale of
creation, through the story the child learns about patience, biting off
more than one can chew, risk taking, and the power of storytelling.
Susan Powers speaks to the
importance of community and family with her tale of the Urban Indian
Center. Living with Grandma Lizzie on the income from sales of her
bead work has not been easy. Having
to go to the 2nd hand store for clothes, picking the bruised
fruit for the bargains and living in cockroach infested apartments has
taught Fawn the importance of imagination.
She checks Grandma’s closet every night to see if she can find
that magical world that C.S. Lewis described as Narnia.
Fawn also ignores the name calling from the kids at school by
keeping her nose in her books. Her
imagination and gift for storytelling finally pays off… she has friends
that know what it’s like to be Native.
Before you start
