Advertisement. Click on the ad for more information.
Facebook Twitter Children's Literature Network
Joseph Bruchac

author's website

author's e-mail

< previous - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - next >

How Chipmunk Got His Stripes
written with Jim Bruchac
illustrated by Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey
Dial, 2001
ages 4 to 8, ISBN 978-0-8037-2404-4

The Bruchacs, famous for their Native American folklore retellings, have joined forces with the best-selling illustration team of Aruego and Dewey to create a buoyant picture book teeming with surprises, glowing colors, and big, boastful fun!

When you tease someone, you might just end up with more than you bargained for! Brown Squirrel is very small, but that doesn't keep him from saying what's on his mind. When Big Bear brags that he can do anything, Squirrel challenges him to keep the sun from rising the next morning. The sun comes up, of course, and Squirrel can't resist the mean urge to tease. But soon Big Bear teaches him a hard lesson: The new claw marks down Brown Squirrel's back will be a permanent reminder of his bad behavior! And henceforth, Brown Squirrel will be known as Chipmunk, "the striped one.".

How Chipmunk Got His Stripes

Seasons of the Circle: A Native American Year
illustrated by Robert F. Goetzl
Troll Communications, 2003
ages 4 to 8, ISBN978-0-8167-7469-2

Seasons of the Circle is a beautifully illustrated celebration of a Native American year. From Maliseet hunters following moose tracks to Cherokee people gathering berries in May, this is a hauntingly lyrical tribute by the team behind the award-winning Many Nations.

Seasons of the Circle

Skeleton Man
HarperCollins, 2001
ages 9 to 12, ISBN978-0-0602-9075-7

Ever since the morning Molly woke up to find that her parents hadvanished, her life has become filled with terrible questions. Where have her parents gone? Who is this spooky old man who's taken her to live with him, claiming to be her great-uncle? Why does he never eat, and why does he lock her in her room at night? What are her dreams of the Skeleton Man trying to tell her? There's one thing Molly does know. She needs to find some answers before it's too late.

Skeleton Man

The Winter People
Dial, 2002
young adult, ISBN 978-0-8037-2694-9

Saxso is fourteen when the British soldiers attack his Canadian village. It is the year 1759, and war is raging between the British and the French, with the Abenaki people—Saxso's people—by their side. Many people are killed and some are taken hostage, including Saxso's own mother and two younger sisters. It's up to Saxso, on his own, to track the raiders and bring his family back home.

Riveting and poignant, this novel sheds new light on history, offering the fascinating untold story of the Abenaki perspective on the French and Indian War.

The Winter People

Squanto's Journey:
The Story of the First Thanksgiving
illustrated by Greg Shed
Silver Whistle, 2000
ages 9 to 12, ISBN978-0-1520-1817-7

In 1620 an English ship called the Mayflower landed on the shores inhabited by the Pokanoket people, and it was Squanto who welcomed the newcomers and taught them how to survive in the rugged land they called Plymouth. He showed them how to plant corn, beans, and squash, and how to hunt and fish. And when a good harvest was gathered in the fall, the two peoples feasted together in the spirit of peace and brotherhood. Almost four hundred years later, the tradition continues...

Squanto's Journey

Native American Games & Stories
written with Jim Bruchac
illustrated by Kayeri Akweks
Fulcrum, 2000
ages 9 to 12, ISBN978-0-6138-3162-8

Native American Games & Stories

Sacajawea, a novel
Silver Whistle, 2000
young adult, ISBN978-0-1520-2234-1

Captured by her enemies, married to a foreigner, and a mother at age sixteen, Sacajawea lived a life of turmoil and change. Then in 1804, the mysterious young Shoshone woman known as Bird Woman met Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Acting as interpreter, guide, and peacemaker, Sacajawea bravely embarked on an epic journey that altered history forever. Hear her extraordinary story, told by Sacajawea and by William Clark, in alternating chapters and including parts of Clark's original diaries.

Sacajawea

Pushing Up the Sky:
Seven Plays for Children
illustrated by Teresa Flavin
Dial, 2000
ages 4 to 8, ISBN
978-0-8037-2168-5

From acclaimed Native American storyteller Joseph Bruchac comes a collection of seven lively plays for children to perform, each one adapted from a different traditional Native tale. Filled with heroes and tricksters, comedy and drama, these entertaining plays are a wonderful way to bring Native cultures to life for young people. Each play has multiple parts that can be adjusted to suit the size of a particular group and includes simple, informative suggestions for props, scenery, and costumes that children can help to create.

Pushing Up the Sky

Seeing the Circle
R.C. Owen, 1999
ages 4 to 8, ISBN978-1-5727-4327-4

The author tells how he learned about his own Native American background, how he became a writer, and how he spends his days.

Seeing the Circle

The Trail of Tears
illustrated by Diana Magnuson
RandomHouse Books for Young Readers, 1999
ages 9 to 12, ISBN978-0-6799-9052-9

Recounts how the Cherokees, after fighting to keep their land in the nineteenth century, were forced to leave and travel 1200 miles to a new settlement in Oklahoma, a terrible journey known as the Trail of Tears.

The Trail of Tears

Crazy Horse's Vision
illustrated by S.D. Nelson
Lee and Low Books, 2000
ages 6 and up, ISBN 978-1-880000-94-6

Joseph Bruchac tells the compelling story of how a young boy named Curly seeks a vision in the hope of saving his people—and grows into the brave and fierce warrior Crazy Horse. Sioux artist S. D. Nelson's paintings, in the traditional ledger style of the Plains Indians, evokes the drama and the tragedy of this important American figure.

Crazy Horse's Vision

The Arrow Over the Door
illustrated by James Watling
Dial, 1998
ages 9 to 12, ISBN 978-0-8037-2078-7

To fourteen-year-old Samuel Russell, called coward for his peace-loving Quaker beliefs, the summer of 1777 is a time of fear. The British and the Patriots will soon meet in battle near his home in Saratoga, New York. The Quakers are in danger from roaming Indians and raiders—yet to fight back is not the Friends' way. To Stands Straight, a young Abenaki Indian on a scouting mission for the British, all Americans are enemies, for they killed his mother and brother. But in a Quaker Meetinghouse he will come upon Americans unlike any he has ever seen. What will the encounter bring? Based on a real historical incident, this fast-paced and moving story is a powerful reminder that the way of peacecan be walked by all human beings.

Arrow Over the Door

The Waters Between:
A Novel of the Dawn Land

University Press of New England, 1998
ISBN 978-1-5846-5015-7

The time is ten thousand years ago and the place is the shores of Lake Champlain, a land inhabited by Abenaki communities. In this third novel about the "people of the dawnland," the lake they call Petonbowk holds both sustenance and danger, and Young Hunter is called upon to confront a dual menace.

The lake, it seems, holds a huge water-snake monster that makes it impossible to reap the waters' bountiful harvest of fish and game. And, worse, a tortured outcast, Watches Darkness, has turned against his tribe and is using his deepseer's knowledge to perpetrate horrible acts of senseless evil: he destroys whole villages out of sheer malevolence; he literally eats his victims' hearts to absorb their powers; he kills his own grandmother without remorse. The novel becomes not just an archetypal battle of good versus evil but a vivid depiction of traditional New England Indian culture in pre-Columbian times.

Waters Between

When the Chenoo Howls:
Native American Tales of Terror
written with Jim Bruchac
illustrated by William S. Bock
Walker, 1999
ages 9 to 12, ISBN 978-0-8027-7576-4

Twelve scary stories from the northeast woodland Native Americans.

When the Chenoo Howls

Makiawisug: Gift of the Little People
written with Melissa Fawcett
illustrated by David Wagner
Little People Publications, 1997
ages 6 to 10, ISBN 978-0-9656933-2-5

< previous - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - next >

Copyright 2002- Children's Literature Network.