Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children

by Joseph Bruchac, Michael J. Caduto (Illustrator)

Using Native American stories as a teaching tool to help children discover plants and their environment, a complete program of study in botany, plant ecology, and natural history of many North American plants focuses on environmental and stewardship issues. IP.

Genres: Nature, Indigenous, Native American, Childrens, Science, Nonfiction, Teaching

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Joseph Bruchac lives with his wife, Carol, in the Adirondack mountain foothills town of Greenfield Center, New York, in the same house where his maternal grandparents raised him. Much of his writing draws on that land and his Abenaki ancestry. Although his American Indian heritage is only one part of an ethnic background that includes Slovak and English blood, those Native roots are the ones by which he has been most nourished. He, his younger sister Margaret, and his two grown sons, James and Jesse, continue to work extensively in projects involving the preservation of Abenaki culture, language and traditional Native skills, including performing traditional and contemporary Abenaki music with the Dawnland Singers.

He holds a B.A. from Cornell University, an M.A. in Literature and Creative Writing from Syracuse and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Union Institute of Ohio. His work as a educator includes eight years of directing a college program for Skidmore College inside a maximum security prison. With his wife, Carol, he is the founder and Co-Director of the Greenfield Review Literary Center and The Greenfield Review Press. He has edited a number of highly praised anthologies of contemporary poetry and fiction, including Songs from this Earth on Turtle's Back, Breaking Silence (winner of an American Book Award) and Returning the Gift. His poems, articles and stories have appeared in over 500 publications, from American Poetry Review, Cricket and Aboriginal Voices to National Geographic, Parabola and Smithsonian Magazine. He has authored more than 70 books for adults and children, including The First Strawberries, Keepers of the Earth (co-authored with Michael Caduto), Tell Me a Tale, When the Chenoo Howls (co-authored with his son, James), his autobiography Bowman's Store and such novels as Dawn Land, The Waters Between, Arrow Over the Door and The Heart of a Chief. Forthcoming titles include Squanto's Journey (Harcourt), a picture book, Sacajawea (Harcourt), an historical novel, Crazy Horse's Vision (Lee & Low), a picture book, and Pushing Up The Sky (Dial), a collection of plays for children. His honors include a Rockefeller Humanities fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship for Poetry, the Cherokee Nation Prose Award, the Knickerbocker Award, the Hope S. Dean Award for Notable Achievement in Children's Literature and both the 1998 Writer of the Year Award and the 1998 Storyteller of the Year Award from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. In 1999, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas.

As a professional teller of the traditional tales of the Adirondacks and the Native peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Joe Bruchac has performed widely in Europe and throughout the United States from Florida to Hawaii and has been featured at such events as the British Storytelling Festival and the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee. He has been a storyteller-in-residence for Native American organizations and schools throughout the continent, including the Institute of Alaska Native Arts and the Onondaga Nation School. He discusses Native culture and his books and does storytelling programs at dozens of elementary and secondary schools each year as a visiting author.

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants Through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children (which was published in 1994), each of the featured traditional tales (lyrically, beautifully retold as well as gorgeously, expressively illustrated by Abenaki children's author Joseph Bruchac) and then followed by detailed discussion prompts as well as Michael J. Caputo's botanical information and a plethora of possible earth and plant based activities (for children, for students) acknowledges the Native North American cultures (the tribal affiliations) in which the respective stories originated and with accompanying maps helping readers (or listeners) to locate, to visually situate where the different cultural groups (tribes) traditionally resided (and often of course still reside) in North America. And yes, considering that every tale featured (encountered) in Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants Through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children is about one to three pages in length, this in my humble opinion also makes them ideal for reading aloud and therefore not only making use of oral tradition but also celebrating the latter and pointing out with Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants Through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children that first and foremost, that traditionally, Native American stories, culture and education were and still are based on oral transmission, on the elders teaching, education via word-of-mouth.

And once a tale has been shared, and students have reflected on the story via the discussion prompts, Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants Through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children then (as already pointed out) offers Michael J. Caputo's many suggestions for ecological activities to solidify and expand the learning of the story, field trips, demonstrations, experiments, puppet shows, the list is wonderfully expansive, comprehensively thorough, although sometimes perhaps also just a wee bit overly enthusiastic, as I for one certainly have felt at times somewhat inundated and textually overwhelmed. But yes, I do very much appreciate, value and cherish the activity suggestions, the tales themselves, the information presented and shared by Joseph Bruchac and Michael J. Caputo and definitely do consider Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants Through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children a wonderful teaching resource for both in class and at home use (geared mostly towards grades three to grade eight, but that of course the activities can also be modified for younger and also for older ages).
     
Finally (last but definitely not least), the glossary and pronunciation key at the back of Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants Through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children and that there are source notes at the end of each story/activities section, this is for and to me an added bonus, very much both enjoyed and also warmly appreciated, as is Joseph Bruchac's section titled Other Versions of Native American Stories, where Bruchac discusses his story selection process and his interest in respecting the traditional oral culture of Native American stories, and with me certainly and definitely considering Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants Through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children as an excellent and useable teaching resource (and my only annoyance and potential caveat being that the font size of the text for the non story parts of Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children is rather minuscule and thus also rather hard to read and painful for ageing eyes).

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Information Book

An ecology class curriculum book infused with Native American philosophy and culture.

This is a book I would love to own. The lessons in it as they stand are a little old for the students in my class but the concepts are appropriate to students of all ages. I find the part of Native American culture I appreciate the most is the belief that everything has a purpose and an intrinsic value. This book is a great assistant in teaching this belief as well as many other ecological practices.

[CFAITC]

Native plant legends from 18 Native American tribes.

[Cheryl]

Hardcore educational; much too much for me, as I have access to no children. A bit dated in that not all creators are Native, but enough are. A little too 'noble savage' for some, perhaps, but imo still valuable because we all need to learn more about respect for nature.

June 2024