Return of the Sun: Native American Tales from the Northeast Woodlands

by Joseph Bruchac, Gary Carpenter (Illustrator)

his 4th collection of Native folk tales

Genres: Native American

204 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1989

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

[Sylvia Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved it though i think some of the narratives are a little simplistic but all have a positive message for loving the earth and being true to your own better nature. I was reading this and will be reading a few other books as research for my own book on emotional literacy for parents with children of all ages - how not to pass on your own issues - using stories as the medium through which to share and discuss these life lessons. This patterns comes out in these stories. well worth reading for a better insight into some of the cultural / spiritual traditions of these wonderful peoples too

[Tillie Torpey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bruchac, J. (1989). Return of the sun: Native American tales from the Northeast woodlands. Crossing Press: 1St Edition edition.


Theme/Topic: Tales about the traditions, beliefs and culture of eastern tribes

Critique (comments, observations, questions):
One characteristic that I really enjoyed about this book was the diverse animal tricksters that different tribes had, I know that for my two tribes: Navajo and Coeur d’Alene, who come from different regions share a common trickster, the Coyote. Overall I enjoy learning about different cultural beliefs. One literary element that strike me was that many of the types of tales that we learning in T&L 307, some of the forms were included in this book.

Various Teaching Ideas:
Teaching ideas that I could use this book for in my classroom would be (1) teaching about folklore tales, (2) teaching about multiculturalism within large ethnic groups, and (3) providing the opportunity for students to share any folklores they know, or making up their own.

[Lin Lin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is brimming over with wisdom of the Native American tribes through their tales, myths, and legends.