Sequoyah and the Cherokee Alphabet

by Robert Cwiklik, T. Lewis (Illustrator), Alvin M. Josephy Jr. (Introduction)

A biography of the Cherokee Indian who invented a method for his people to write and read their own language

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, School

129 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1989

About the author

Robert Cwiklik was an editor at the Wall Street Journal for more than sixteen years. He is the author of House Rules, about a year in the life of a freshman congressman, and several books for young adults and children.

Reviews

[Dustin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great little book on the Cherokee's written language. Something I was interested in as a 1/8th Cherokee who just visited the reservation in NC recently.

[Eden Silverfox · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a biography of Sequoyah, the man who made it possible for the Cherokees to read and write. Some parts of the story was reimagined to make it flow better and make it interesting.
This biography tells of Sequoyah's life growing up and how he came up with the idea to make it possible for his people to read and write. The book, though for younger people, is very informative on his life, the Cherokees and as well as what was happening to them at the time.

Some parts of it were shocking to read as there was some violence. In a way, it can make you angry and sad to think that our country was once this time and treated Native Americans so terribly.
I can tell you, when I was in school, there wasn't any of this in the history books about Native Americans. Of course, there is talk of the first thanksgiving, but even the story they teach of that in school is not the true.

The truth is, a lot of Native Americans suffered, as well as Africans and many, many other immigrants that came from Europe suffered as they, too, were enslaved.
It is sad to think this is how our country started and this book tells a lot of the things that happened to Native Americans, especially the Cherokee because Sequoyah was part Cherokee.

This book explains what Sequoyah did for his people by making a way for them to read and write; the Cherokee were able to keep their own voice by being able to read and write their language.

I thought this book was actually really good. Although this is for younger people, I think all ages could read this and learn from it. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in learning some about Sequoyah and people who want to learn some history of Native Americans.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for school. I didn't like how the author took creative liberties, reimagining scenes and all, but if he didn't it would've been boring. All in all, it was ok, and full of info and history that, put together, is almost overwhelming.

Truth be told, a lot of it made me catch my breath. It's hard to believe it was once to violent and wild in America. The Trail of Tears and Treaty of Hopewell made me wince at how Native Americans were treated. Thank heavens I wasn't born then, with all the scalping and raiding going on (on both sides - well, not that the settlers were scalping, but that's not the point).

Still, it was written for younger people, very simply and understandably, and a somehow I can't see me going back to read it again...

So three stars.

[Madeline · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't like this book at all. The introduction and the first few chapters were the worst. It practically says all American settlers were bloodthirsty beasts, and wanted to kill every Native on the continent, whether good or bad. I understand some settlers may have been like that, to an extent, but so were someIndians. In reality, the settlers may have been wary of Indians, and vice versa, but not all people of either group wished to murder everyone of the other. This insinuation was extremely frustrating.

The rest of the book focused more on Sequoyah. Some chapters were okay and interesting. Others were informative enough, but not very exciting—not that a school book needs to be "exciting," but history shouldn't be a slog.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a somewhat fictionalized narrative biography of Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee written language. The author takes a good deal of the history about and around Sequoyah and tells his story adding descriptions to build the scenes. While not a wonderful biography, it is an entertain story about a true Cherokee hero. To it's defense it does have the main points of history correct. Just don't take every word as gospel. To seems to be aimed at the youg adults or school age children. Easy reading.

[AnnaScott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book, but I felt that it dragged out a bit. That and the gruesome descriptions of scalping, injuries, etc. made this not the most enjoyable book to me. Sequoyah was a very interesting person, though, and was quite successful. It is sad to me that his wife didn't see it, and that a lot of people thought he was possessed. It was sad too to see the Cherokee's side to the story about the Trail of Tears and the western expansion of Americans, and how so many white people mistreated them.

[Shelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Content would get higher marks, but the writing is average. I really enjoyed reading and learning about Sequoyah and the long process it took for him to develop the symbolic syllabary for the Cherokee language. I did not become much of a fan of President Andrew Jackson after reading of his poor treatment of the Indians.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compelling biography of Sequoyah, a Cherokee Indian (the giant Sequoyah redwood trees are named after him), who invented an alphabet for the Cherokee language in 1821, which gave the Cherokee a sense of identity and unity in a time when the Native Americans were being forced out of their homelands farther west.

[Skye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting - never knew about Sequoyah at all.

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting information, yet the writing made it slow to read.

[Bryan Spahr]

read for school in 8th grade

[Nathan Albright · Rating 1 out of 5]

I sincerely hope that this author didn't receive any taxpayer money in order to write this book, because if so he deserves to be sued for restitution. As someone who reads more than his share of literature aimed at young people [1], I found this to be among the worst sort of books that are aimed at young people. To be sure, this book was not badly written. Its offenses are in terms of its pedagogical value as well as its historical value, not in terms of its style or its subject matter, for the most part. Given the extent of the historical sins of this particular volume, and the ominous fact that it is part of series of biographies aimed at young readers, one wonders if the author was merely incompetent at mastering the subject material in an accurate way or if there was deliberate mangling of the historical account in order to paint Sequoyah in a more positive fashion. It is hard to tell whether this book, in other words, is due to the author's incompetence or malfeasance as a history, a matter of particular importance when one is teaching to children and can be legitimately accused with teaching them lies.

In terms of its contents and structure, this book is only about 130 pages or so. The bibliography for this book is extremely short, so it does not appear as if the author has a great deal of mastery of his subject. The contents of the book are divided into nineteen chapters, begin with a possibly invented and politically correct encounter with a phrenologist trying to impress the corrupt 19th century Cherokee chief John Ross, and then goes back to Cherokee's upbringing in a broken family where his supposedly drunken ne'er do well of a father abandoned his family in order to save his own skin, and where young Sequoyah grows up raised by his mother and by his uncles. By the time he finds himself lame, while still a child, there is a heavily embellished account of illness after many more embellished childhood stories. It is nearly 3/4 into the book by the time Sequoyah's insight into the sounds that make up language is described among a Cherokee nation concerned that he might be engaged in some sort of witchcraft by inventing his famous Cherokee syllabary.

What this book does is take the life of a famous person and paint it in several ways that are contrary to history. On the one hand, the author follows an ancient practice that has fallen under deserved ill repute among contemporary historians in inventing conversations and incidents in the absence of evidence. Additionally, the author conflates stories relating the subject's first marriage with his second marriage, and downplays Sequyah's own struggles with alcoholism in order to distance himself from his family tradition of broken families and addiction and make him a more heroic but also less real figure. On top of these errors, the author also manages to give the book a stridently anti-white tone that is extremely offensive to readers who do not have a leftist political agenda. This book fails as history, and ends up being propaganda aimed at children, among the worst sort of literature that exists. Ultimately, this book only has value insofar as it exists to be debunked and corrected by those who are legitimate historians and in order to know the source of myths that are repeated by teachers or readers without awareness of the inaccuracy of this book's reportage. That value is not worth reading even a modestly sized book as this one is.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2013...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...