Celebration is the word that comes to mind after reading Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids. This is one of the first books published by Heartdrum, a Native-focused imprint of HarperCollin’s Children’s Books. Edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith, it brings together stories from many Native writers centering around a single powwow in Michigan. Each storyContinue reading “Celebration!”
Tag Archives: Native American
Making Peace with Stories
Joseph Bruchac has written a number of extraordinary books for children and young adults that have brought the stories of Native American people to a wide audience of readers. Peacemaker will be released in January 2021 and, while the story takes place centuries ago, I feel like it is a perfect message for our times.Continue reading “Making Peace with Stories”
Brave Acceptance
Think back to a book you have read that was so absorbing, so beautiful that it made you want to be a participant in the story. I often feel like I want to befriend a character in a book that I am reading, but it is rare for me to wish that I could justContinue reading “Brave Acceptance”
Progress in Fits and Starts
It is 2020 and one of the prospective Democratic candidates for the presidency of the United States is an openly gay man. Not only that, he kinda, maybe, sort-of won the Iowa caucuses (sorry about all of the confusion, by the way). This can be hard to reconcile with the fact that forty-six years andContinue reading “Progress in Fits and Starts”
Teaching Social Justice with Children's Books 