MG Books About Native Americans

Earlier this month, on May 10, the one hundred forty-ninth anniversary of the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit occurred. Major activities will undoubtedly be planned next year by the National Park Service for the sesquicentennial celebration of this historical event. Over the coming year, it would be appropriate for students to study the impact this event had on the history of the United States. I write about the importance of the railroad to the westward expansion of the “white man” in my Iron Horse Chronicles trilogy. Throughout all three books, there is a strong sub-plot involving the respect that develops between the youthful white protagonist and a mixed-blood Cheyenne Indian boy. 

The completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 signaled the end of the way of life for those Native Americans who still struggled to be free. European settlers in North America had been pushing the Indians off their ancestral lands for over two hundred years by the late 1860s, but now Manifest Destiny could be more easily be implemented. It is suitable at this time to remember the legacy of those original inhabitants of the western hemisphere. There are several award-winning, historical novels that will help educate, as well as entertain, the middle grade reader as he or she learns about some of the difficulties the Indians faced.

An overview of Native Americans would be helpful in understanding the lessons contained in the novels. North American Indian by David Murdoch, published by DK Eyewitness Books, is an excellent place to start. Beautifully illustrated with color photographs, drawings, and maps, this book covers the subject from initial peopling of the continent, through the struggles to survive against the encroachment of the white man, to the present-day status of the Indian. The differences among the various tribes and the geographical areas each inhabited are well explained.

We begin with one of the earliest encounters that Europeans had with the Native Americans. Blood on the River: James Town, 1607, by Elisa Carbone tells the tale of a young man who joins the expedition of Captain John Smith, which established the first European colony in Virginia. The young settler featured in the novel gets to know Chief Powhatan and Pocahontas of the Algonquian Indians. Powhatan takes offense at the way the colonists treat him, and it is through the efforts of Smith and Pocahontas that the settlers avoid destruction. This book received a starred review from School Library Journal.

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare is a Newbery Honor book telling the story of a thirteen-year-old white boy who struggles to survive on what was then considered the “frontier” in New England in the 1700s. The protagonist is assisted by a Native American boy, and the two of them become friends. Ms. Speare is a multiple Newbery winner. Her The Witch of Blackbird Pond, set in colonial Connecticut, won the Newbery Award in 1959. The Bronze Bow, set in Israel during the time of Jesus Christ, won the Newbery Award in 1962.

Sign Down the Moon by Scott O’Dell is a Newbery Honor book. It is the story of the forced march of Navajo people from their land of pueblos to desolate Fort Sumner, New Mexico, in the mid-1800s. This book will acquaint young readers with the problems of a civilized people who inhabited what are now the western states of Arizona and New Mexico. Mr. O’Dell, too, is a multiple Newbery winner.

O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins won the Newbery Award in 1961. This book takes the reader to an island off the coast of California in the early 1800s and relates the story of a young Indian girl struggling to survive alone. The tale is based on a historical event wherein the girl must defend herself from wild dogs that killed her brother. She must also guard against Aleutian sea otter hunters, while obtaining and protecting her own food supply.