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Flying with the Eagle, Racing the Great Bear
Each story in this collection of authentic native North American tribal tales drawn from sixteen native American cultures focuses on the unifying theme of a boy's passage into manhood.
144 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Joseph Bruchac
289 books608 followersJoseph 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 9, 2026
Flying with the Eagle, Racing with the Great Bear presents itself as a collection of stories about boys coming of age and becoming men. Yet for me, the most compelling aspect of the book was not simply the transformation of the young men at its center, but the strength and influence of the women who surround them—particularly the mothers and grandmothers whose presence shapes their character, choices, resilience, and understanding of the world.
Again and again, these women emerge as sources of wisdom, stability, discipline, memory, and emotional strength. Their influence is not incidental to the boys’ development; it is fundamental to it. The young men may be the subjects of the coming-of-age stories, but the women often seem to provide the moral and emotional framework within which that growth becomes possible.
What makes this especially striking is that the author himself does not appear to fully recognize this dimension of his own work. In both the foreword and afterward, his emphasis remains largely on the boys and their journeys toward manhood. Yet the stories themselves suggest something richer and, perhaps, more revealing: that these young men are formed not only through their own experiences or through conventional ideas of masculinity, but through the powerful example, care, sacrifice, and authority of the women in their lives.
There is an interesting irony in that disconnect. The book may consciously set out to tell us how boys become men, while unconsciously offering an equally powerful account of the women who help make those men. For me, that tension was one of the most captivating aspects of the collection and gave the stories a depth that extended well beyond the coming-of-age framework the author explicitly describes.
Again and again, these women emerge as sources of wisdom, stability, discipline, memory, and emotional strength. Their influence is not incidental to the boys’ development; it is fundamental to it. The young men may be the subjects of the coming-of-age stories, but the women often seem to provide the moral and emotional framework within which that growth becomes possible.
What makes this especially striking is that the author himself does not appear to fully recognize this dimension of his own work. In both the foreword and afterward, his emphasis remains largely on the boys and their journeys toward manhood. Yet the stories themselves suggest something richer and, perhaps, more revealing: that these young men are formed not only through their own experiences or through conventional ideas of masculinity, but through the powerful example, care, sacrifice, and authority of the women in their lives.
There is an interesting irony in that disconnect. The book may consciously set out to tell us how boys become men, while unconsciously offering an equally powerful account of the women who help make those men. For me, that tension was one of the most captivating aspects of the collection and gave the stories a depth that extended well beyond the coming-of-age framework the author explicitly describes.
July 16, 2023
Loved these stories :)
July 21, 2019
I read this as part of a reading challenge that was themed around the heavens. This was read for Aquila (the eagle). It relates 16 Native American coming of age myths/folktales, four from each of the four main geographic regions of the US. (Northeast, Southeast, Southwest and Northwest.)
One of the things I learned from the author is the importance of the number four in Native cultures, and once I knew to look for it, it became easy to see in the stories.
The short stories (most only a couple of pages) are told the way you'd tell a story orally, which isn't surprising. But reading something that is meant to be spoken can leave the reader a bit flat, much like reading Shakespeare's plays instead of seeing them on stage.
I most enjoyed the stories that explain why animals have certain characteristics, like why crows are all black now (Cheyenne) or why gophers have dark paws (Apache). My favorite of all the stories was that of Salmon Boy aka Half Moldy Boy from the Tlingit. I also particularly enjoyed learning how Crazy Horse got his name.
I suspect that most of the people who read this did so either for research purposes or for a class. It very much reminded me of a book I'd have read for one of my anthropology classes. And while that's not a bad thing, the book does have that certain "academic" tone to it that might not be super inviting.
As an aside, I was supposed to be in the Grand Canyon this past week, but that didn't happen. One of the stories (Diné, Navajo) in part relates how the Grand Canyon was formed. So there's that at least.
One of the things I learned from the author is the importance of the number four in Native cultures, and once I knew to look for it, it became easy to see in the stories.
The short stories (most only a couple of pages) are told the way you'd tell a story orally, which isn't surprising. But reading something that is meant to be spoken can leave the reader a bit flat, much like reading Shakespeare's plays instead of seeing them on stage.
I most enjoyed the stories that explain why animals have certain characteristics, like why crows are all black now (Cheyenne) or why gophers have dark paws (Apache). My favorite of all the stories was that of Salmon Boy aka Half Moldy Boy from the Tlingit. I also particularly enjoyed learning how Crazy Horse got his name.
I suspect that most of the people who read this did so either for research purposes or for a class. It very much reminded me of a book I'd have read for one of my anthropology classes. And while that's not a bad thing, the book does have that certain "academic" tone to it that might not be super inviting.
As an aside, I was supposed to be in the Grand Canyon this past week, but that didn't happen. One of the stories (Diné, Navajo) in part relates how the Grand Canyon was formed. So there's that at least.
January 23, 2022
This a a fantastic book. I love all kinds of traditional literature and it was a pleasure to read these Native American stories. Although this is a short book, since these stories all connect to the theme of a boy's initiation into manhood, this collection feels very much like a deep dive into Native American culture.
August 13, 2020
YA Lit class
November 9, 2021
What an impact!
Really enjoyed this collection of short stories! I enjoyed how the author divided the stories by region and featured a foreword before each section. I learned so much; from significance of the number 4 to the legends of the North Star. Really amazing how these short stories can have such an impact.
Really enjoyed this collection of short stories! I enjoyed how the author divided the stories by region and featured a foreword before each section. I learned so much; from significance of the number 4 to the legends of the North Star. Really amazing how these short stories can have such an impact.
December 2, 2013
Winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Joseph Bruchac is an Abenaki Indian who tells his stories with a distinct Native American perspective; therefore adding a more personal voice to his stories. ‘Flying with the Eagle, Racing the Great Bear’ consists of sixteen Native American stories from all across America. Each story is heart-felt as Bruchac details the emotional journey a boy takes into adulthood; through arduous rites of passages, they must gather their strength, intelligence, and endurance to face the challenges they have been given; learning the means to survival and collaboration.
The author skillfully intertwines knowledge of Native American cultures with interesting adventures; thus capturing the attention of younger audiences. I highly recommend this book to young children and teens who are interested in learning about Native American culture.
The author skillfully intertwines knowledge of Native American cultures with interesting adventures; thus capturing the attention of younger audiences. I highly recommend this book to young children and teens who are interested in learning about Native American culture.
August 31, 2013
These stories are written the way a storyteller would speak them, so sometimes they make for awkward reading, but read aloud or if you can image a wise Native speaking them - if you can imagine that voice in your head you will appreciate them more. My favorites were Salmon Boy and How the Game Animals Were Set Free. I also enjoyed Star Boy and The Light Haired Boy.
This book made me have many questions about various tribal cultures- I wish there had been footnotes, etc, but it wetted my appetite for more knowledge.
This book made me have many questions about various tribal cultures- I wish there had been footnotes, etc, but it wetted my appetite for more knowledge.
June 6, 2011
As a Native American I loved reading this book, it gave me a insight to my haritage, and outher tribes. I really love this book. If you love short story's then you will love this book. Also I like that the author is also a Native American who was willing to share with people the triditions of so many tribes.
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February 5, 2009JAR5-Bru
November 10, 2012
stories from Native Americans...always love these..
September 6, 2014
Flying with the Eagle, Racing the Great Bear by joseph bruchac collection of legends and stories, connected to courage and friendship.
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September 20, 2012What a great book!!!!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews