Library & Information Science, Course 262: Resources for Young Adults.
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WEBSITE SOURCES

A short listing of websites that provide information on Native American literature for young adults.

 http://falcon,jmu/~ramseyil/native.htm The Internet School Library for Native Americans. Has many links on Native American information. Separate section for y.a. literature.

http://www.hanksville.org This site comes from the University of Massachusetts. Open up the Index of Native American Resources on the Internet. It links to the WWW Virtual Library where there are author and biographical links, on-line journals and seven books on-line.

http://www.homepage.interaccess.com~cynthias/nativebooksc.htm Maintained by author Cynthia Leitich Smith. Thje only way I seem to be able to access this is to go to Directhit.com and search using her full name. his site has book reviews and listings of Naitve American literature and information on issues.

http://www.Indiancircle.com/other.shtm/#misc Find the Miscellaneous section and scroll down to Native American literature. This site has good research links to national archives and records, historical places and events. It also has biographies and on-line poetry.

http://www.Indiancircle.com/other.shtm/#miscThis site, the Internet Public Library, has a wonderful data base of Native American literature. It can be searched by author, title and tribe. There are short biographies of Native American writers, and descriptions of their books.

http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmai/ Smithonian Institure website that offers recommended readings, reference links, book reviews and bibliographies of various genres of books. This site would be useful for the older young adult person.

http://www.studyweb.com Open literature and then scroll down to Native American literature=scroll again down to Native American books for the reviews section. The book reviews have a thumbs up / thumbs down format with explanations.

NATIVE AMERICAN SOURCES FOR BOOK PURCHASES

FOUR WINDS INDIAN BOOKS E-mail: Fourwind@inebraska.com Phone: 1-402-362-5654 Website: http://www.fourwindsbooks.com Call or e-mail for catalog. The small order I placed with these folks was delivered within two weeks.

 OYATE Website:www.oyate.org This site has books, multimedia items and teacher materials that can be purchased. It also has a section on books that should be avoided with explanations.

AMERICAN INDIAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION An affiliate of the American Library Association. Membershiup available for $10.00 by going to website http://www.pitt.edu/~lmitten/aila.html. Native American, Lisa Mittens is the University Pittsburg's librarian.

 NOVELS READ

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. Nonfiction. This novel about the westward movement is told from the point of view of the Native Americans. Graphic details. Upper High School audience.

Bowman's Store by Joseph Bruchau, Autobiography. Related in somewhat non-linear vignettes disclosing hertiage and values. Good for high school.

Flying with the Eagle, Racing the Great Bear and another book Dog People by Joseph Bruchau,traditional Native American stories for all young adult audiences.

A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris. Fiction. Three generations of mixed blood females in one famioly tell their life stories-interwoven yet different points of view. Surpeise ending High School and up.

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George. Fiction. Eskimo young teen girl strikes out in the Alaskan wilderness, lives with wolves. All young adult audiences. Newberry Medal Winner.

Pushing the Bear-A Novel of the Trail of Tears by Diane Glancy. Historical fiction. Detailed story of a family's experience on this trail. Good for high school or older.

Night of the Cruel Moon by Stanley Hoig. Historical. Very clean-easy to read account of the Trail of Tears for all T.A.s Where White Men Fear to Tread by Russell Mean. Autobiography. Long book for older y.a. audience Very informative re:how the politics of this century affected the lives of Native Americans.

House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday. Fiction. Complicated plot of young Native American home from WWII and his struggles to deal with the two worlds he lives in. For upper high school and older. Pulitzer Prize winner.

Other Destinies by Louis Owens. One of three volumes of critical analysis. This book looks at the workd=s of authors: Ridge, Dove, Mathews, McNickle, Momaday, Welch, Silko, Erdich, Dorris and Vizenor. High School and older.

The Flight of Red Bird by Doreen Rappaport. Historical. Story of a Native American women torn between her heritage and the white world she was raised in. Good for high school or older.

 Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko. Fiction. Native American recovering from WWII experience. Native American ceremony helps him recover his sanity and balance in life. High school and up.

Some Other Native American Authors for Y.A.s*

Broker, Ignatia, Night Flying Women:An Ojibway Narrative (NF)

 Capps, Benjamin, The Great Chiefs (NF)

 Highwater, Jamake, The Ceremony of Innocence, Legend Days (F)

 Morgan, Speer, The Whipping Boy (F)

 Sherman, Alexie, Reservation Blues (F)-American Book Award

 Tum Mencgu, Rigoberta, Rigoberta Menchu Tum: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. (NF) Won 1992 Nobel Peace Prize for this book.

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George. Historical Fiction, Young Eskimo teenage girl stikes out on her own in the Alaskan wilderness after she thinks her father is dead, and she is living in an arranged marriage that is abusive to her. She starts out thinking her goal is to get to the mainland to a penpal of hers. In her trek to get to the coast to catch a plane she ends up living with wolves, and she is very comfortable doing this because she has the survival skills, the knowledge and the few instruments needed. The story reflects the beauty of simplicity, some trials that are encountered. In the end it is found out that the father is alive, but he is not living as a traditional Eskomo. Her hopes to get to the mainland change when she sees hunters hunt down her favorite wolf. She intends to stay with the father at the end of the story.

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, Fiction, Native American recovering from nightmare of WWII. He has post tramatic stress. Also deals with being a Native American who is living on a reservation.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, Historical Nonfiction, Graphic account of how the Native Americans view the colonization of what becomes the U.S.A.. It is for upper high school kids-adult. Nothing to be proud of about the government conduct here.

House Made of Dawn by Scott Momaday, Harper and Row, New York, 1968, The story of a Native American WWII veteran trying to adapt to life after war. For some reason I found this plot hard to follow, or maybe it was just too depressing.

Bowman's Store by Joseph Bruchac, Dial Books, New York 1997, Historical/Autobiographical, Joseph's story is a touching one. The relationship with his grandparent's is wonderful. Since the same could not be had with his parents, he was fortunate to have had loving grandparents. His life is told in vignettes that are not completely chronological. I was not turned onto this book-the title did not sound too great, but as I read the book I got sucked right into it. It's heartwarming to me to see the underdog child be sucessful. Interesting, in the book it is mentioned that they never called themselves Indians for fear of being shot or killed so they called themselves French Canadian. When my mom did the family geneology my grandmother often said there was French in the family. Guess what-no French, but there was Indian in my family and this book expained why for me. I enjoy reading these native American books and getting a feel for that culture's point of view, their life experiences and grasp their history thru their life stories.

 Historical Nonfiction

Night of the Cruel Moon by Stanley Hoig, Facts on File, New York 1996, An easy to read book that goes into pretty good detail considering the reading level of 7th or 8th grade concerning the Trail of Tears. It is amazing how hard these people tried to be accepted by whites-all for not. Also amazing to what political lengths they went to try to not be removed from their homes. Quite a few of the leaders were mixedbloods, but that did not matter to the U.S. government.

Historical Fiction

Walker of Time by Helen Hughes Vick, Harbinger House, Tuscon AR 1993, A teenage Hopi Indian boy is transported back in time to his ancestors. He plays a critical role in helping them in a medical crisis. Throughout the story he learns their culture and he compares it to his own, so the reader learns the history and the values of the Hopi tribe. It turns out that the boy is actually returning to his own time period and he leads his people out of the area they are living where the water supply is lessening and onto another mesa.

Other Destinies, Understanding the American Indian Novel by Louis Owens, University of Oklahoma Press, London 1992 Owens covers 9 Native American authors and gives critical analysis of their works. Significant is how each author's experience influences their works-also whether full Native or mixblood is variable how the Indian experience is portrayed.

Historical - Nonfiction

 Pushing the Bear by Diane Glancy, A Harvest Book, Harcourt Brace & Co.1996, Written by an author who discovered she was part Native American.. She writes of the Trail of Tears as spoken by several families as they walk that 900 mile trek in the winter. Written in an unusual format where various members share their thoughts and feelings while on the trail in a monologue format; somewhat like a diary but not dated. This story is a weary, sad one. Even the book seems to drag in some spots like the whole event did to those living it. It shares the feelings and the culture of the people, Cherokees, that were torn from their homes and forced to walk to their new home where there would be no whites. Told from the first person perspective the account are heart wrenching, many died. It's almost unbelievable any person could treat another person that way, but then Indians were not people, they were below blacks in the social pecking order during that era.

Autobiography

Where White Men Fear to Tread by Russell Means, St Martin's Press, N.Y. 1995, Russell Means has a tough life. Life on the reservation is difficult where there is poverty and Christians running the school, yet in Vallejo and San Leandro life isn't easy either. This is a very detailed account of a Native American trying to make sense of living in a culture that has looked down its nose at his people. He deals with his own identity problems too. He was very active during the civil rights movement to bring attention to the Native Americans. Means sheds insight as to how the Naive American population are doing now,gives hind sight revelations, and adovcates for the cultures of the Native Americans to be kept alive. This is a long book that is informative and helps the reader understand the recent politics that Native Americans have been subjected to this century.

Two books written by Joseph Bruchac

Dog People, Fulcum Publishing, CO 1995, This book has 5 stories concerning dogs and the native Americans in the New England area in a time era of 10,000 years ago. All stories are 5-7 pages long and focus on how positive these animals are especially with their campanionship and loyalty.

Flying with the Eagle, Racing the Great Bear, BridgeWater Books, USA, 1993, These 16 stories are divided into 4 sections geographically in the U.S.: northeast, southeast,northwest, southwest. Each story comes from a different tribe. The stories deal with hertitage and coming of age-mostly for boys. Each story is 5-7 pages long.

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