November “Leisure Reads”

"This month's 'Leisure Reads' celebrates National Native American Month with novels, anthologies of poetry, short fiction, and song, as well as nonfiction writings on culture, spirituality, and religion. Featured authors include Joseph Bruchac, Sherman Alexie, and Louise Erdrich!" Joshua Zeller

Dawn Land by Joseph Bruchac

"About ten thousand years ago in the northeast, the Abenaki- People of the Dawn Land - created a thriving community in social and ecological balance with nature and with each other. One of the finest sons of the People is Young Hunter, who dedicates himself to becoming a pure hunter. But a shadow is crossing over this place, threatening his beloved homeland, and Young Hunter is called to its defense. The deep-seeing one of his village, Bear Talker, tells him that the change will be brought by beings of great power, with cold hearts and a terrible hunger, and Young Hunter has been chosen to fight them. 'This young one will do things for the people,' Bear Talker thought. 'If he survives...if he survives.'" - Publisher's Summary

Earth Power Coming: Short Fiction in Native American Literature by Simon J. Ortiz

"There have always been the songs, the prayers, the stories of Native American writers. There is a wide variety of styles, themes and topics presented in the fiction of this collection of thirty authors [including Linda Hogan, Louise Erdrich, and Leslie Marmon Silko]. Their stories are evidence of the commitment made by Native American writers to express themselves in this genre of literature." - Publisher's Summary

Face by Sherman Alexie

"In this first full collection in nine years, Alexie's poems and prose show his celebrated passion and wit while also exploring new directions. Novelist, storyteller and performer, he won the National Book Award for his YA novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. His work has been praised throughout the world, but the bedrock remains what The New York Times Book Review said of his very first book: 'Mr. Alexie's is one of the major lyric voices of our time.'" - Publisher's Summary

The Heartsong of Charging Elk by James Welch

"Inspired by actual historical fact, James Welch's The Heartsong of Charging Elk tells the story of an Oglala Sioux who travels the extraordinary geographical and cultural distance from tribal life in the Black Hills of South Dakota to existence on the streets of Marseille. As a young boy, Charging Elk witnessed his people's massacre of Custer's Seventh Cavalry at Little Big Horn, followed by years of futile fighting and wandering until the Sioux were finally lured to the Pine Ridge reservation.... Ironically, it is Charging Elk's horsemanship and independent air that cause Buffalo Bill to recruit him for his Wild West Show, which travels across "the big water" to create a sensation in the capitals of Europe." - Publisher's Summary

Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes

"A unique autobiography unparalleled in American Indian literature, and a deeply moving account of a woman's triumphant struggle to survive in a hostile world. This is the powerful autobiography of Mary Brave Bird, who grew up in the misery of a South Dakota reservation. Rebelling against the violence and hopelessness of reservation life, she joined the tribal pride movement in an effort to bring about much-needed changes." - Publisher's Summary

LaRose by Louise Erdrich

"North Dakota, late summer, 1999. Landreaux Iron stalks a deer along the edge of the property bordering his own. He shoots with easy confidence, but when the buck springs away, Landreaux realizes he's hit something else, a blur he saw as he squeezed the trigger. When he staggers closer, he realizes he has killed his neighbor's five-year-old son, Dusty Ravich.... Horrified at what he's done, the recovered alcoholic turns to an Ojibwe tribe tradition, 'the sweat lodge,' for guidance, and finds a way forward. Following an ancient means of retribution, he and Emmaline will give LaRose to the grieving Peter and Nola. "Our son will be your son now," they tell them.... As the years pass, LaRose becomes the linchpin linking the Irons and the Raviches, and eventually their mutual pain begins to heal." - Publisher's Summary

Morning Girl by Michael Dorris

"Morning Girl, a twelve-year-old Taino, and her younger brother, Star Boy, vividly recreate life on a Bahamian island in 1492-a life that is rich, complex, and soon to be threatened. In Morning Girl's last narrative, she witnesses the arrival of the first Europeans to her world." - Publisher's Summary

Native American Literature: An Anthology by Lawana Trout

"This treasury of literature by Native American authors allows students to listen to the voices from America's first and oldest literature. [It] comprises 100-plus poems, short stories, essays, and memoirs spanning 200 years, ranging from the oral tradition to contemporary writing, and representing a diversity of North American tribes. Organization is thematic, including such topics as images and identities, the remembered earth, growing up, and affairs of the heart."

Native American Songs and Poems: An Anthology by Brian Swann

"In this carefully chosen collection, encompassing traditional songs and contemporary Native American poetry, readers will find a treasury of lyrics verse composed by Seminole, Hopi, Navajo, Pima, Havasupai, Arapaho, Paiute, Nootka, and others. Selections range from the beautiful, traditional Seminole "Song for Bringing a Child into the World" to the cynical, knowing "How to Write the Great American Indian Novel." Permeated by the Indian's deep awareness and appreciation of nature's beauty and rhythms, these poems deal with themes of tradition and continuity, the Indians' place in contemporary society, love, loss, memory, alienation, and many other topics. Taken together, these poems offer an intimate, revealing record of the Native American response to the world, from time-honored chants and songs to the musings of urban Indian poets coming to grips with twentieth-century America." - Publisher's Summary

Reinventing the Enemy's Language: Contemporary Native Women's Writing of North America by Joy Harjo & Gloria Bird

"This long-awaited anthology celebrates the experience of Native American women's important contribution to our literature. ...[T]his is the most comprehensive anthology of its kind to collect the poetry, fiction, prayer, and memoir from Native American women.... Over eighty writers are represented from nearly fifty nations, including such nationally known writers as Louise Erdrich, Linda Hogan, Leslie Silko, Lee Maracle, Janet Campbell Hale, and Luci Tapahonso; others include Wilma Mankiller, Winona LaDuke, and Bea Medicine who are known primarily for their contributions to tribal communities; and some who are published for the first time in this volume." - Publisher's Summary

The Sacred Pipe by Black Elk

"Black Elk of the Sioux has been recognized as one of the truly remarkable men of his time in the matter of religious belief and practice.... Black Elk was the only qualified priest of the older Oglala Sioux still living when The Sacred Pipe was written. This is his book: he gave it orally to Joseph Epes Brown during the latter's eight month's residence on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, where Black Elk lived. Beginning with the story of White Buffalo Cow Woman's first visit to the Sioux to give them the sacred pipe, Black Elk describes and discusses the details and meanings of the seven rites, which were disclosed, one by one, to the Sioux through visions. He takes the reader through the sun dance, the purification rite, the 'keeping of the soul,' and other rites, showing how the Sioux have come to terms with God and nature and their fellow men through a rare spirit of sacrifice and determination." - Publisher's Summary

Spirit & Reason: The Vine Deloria, Jr., Reader by Vine Deloria

"Spirit & Reason is a collection of the works of one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century-Vine Deloria, Jr. Author of such classics as Red Earth, White Lies, and God is Red, Deloria takes readers on a momentous journey through Indian country and beyond by exploring some of the most important issues of the past three decades. The essays gathered here are wide-ranging and essential and include representative pieces from some of Deloria's most influential books, some of his lesser-known articles, and ten new pieces written especially for Spirit & Reason." - Publisher's Summary

Summer in the Spring: Anishinaabe Lyric Poems and Stories by Gerald Vizenor

"The Anishinaabe, otherwise named the Ojibwe or Chippewa, are famous for their lyric songs and stories, particularly because of their compassionate trickster, naanabozbo, and the healing rituals still practiced today in the society of the Midewiwin. The poems and tales, interpreted and re-expressed here by the distinguished Anishinaabe author Gerald Vizenor, were first transcribed more than a century ago by pioneering ethnographer Frances Densmore and Theodore Hudson Beaulieu, a newspaper editor on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. This superb anthology, illustrated with tribal pictomyths and helpfully annotated, includes translations and a glossary of the Anishinaabe words in which the poems and stories originally were spoken." - Publisher's Summary

The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday

"The stories in The Way to Rainy Mountain are told in three voices. The first voice is the voice of my father, the ancestral voice, and the voice of the Kiowa oral tradition. The second is the voice of historical commentary. And the third is that of personal reminiscence, my own voice. There is a turning and returning of myth, history, and memoir throughout, a narrative wheel that is as sacred as language itself." - Preface