Into the Forest discussion

First Nations/Native American has won as a theme for our March 15-May14 Group Read.
Now it is time to nominates books with that theme that you would like to read!
Please make suggestions for:
one adult book,
one YA book,
both can be novels or short story collections using, based on or inspired by the Mythology and folktales of the First Nations of the Americas
and one original tale ( or a collection of tales if they are not too long.)

After a week of nominations there will be one final poll to select the books themselves.

I've no idea what to nominate!

Something by Louise Erdrich seems like an obvious choice, but I've already read The Antelope Wife. Does anyone know of another one of hers that's heavily influenced by myth/folklore?

Or perhapss The Grass Dancer?

Or even Green Grass, Running Water... I love Coyote.

Velma Wallis has written re-tellings of Athabaskan legends. There's Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survivalwhich I have read and consider to be for adults since it deals with mature themes. There's also a children's book Bird Girl and the Man Who Followed the Sun: An Athabaskan Indian Legend from Alaska. It combines two Athabascan legends. I have not read this one.

Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest by Ella E. Clark

Melanti wrote: "I've no idea what to nominate!

Something by Louise Erdrich seems like an obvious choice, but I've already read The Antelope Wife. Does anyone know of another one of h..."


I've read both The Grass Dancer and the The Antelope Wife. Of the two I preferred the Grass Dancer, but both are fantastic and I would read either of them again if they win.

Shomeret wrote: "Velma Wallis has written re-tellings of Athabaskan legends. There's Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survivalwhich I have read and consider to be for adults s..."

Both of those look so good! If you have already read the first one Shomeret you can always nominate the YA one Bird Girl & the Man Who Followed the Sun: An Athabaskan Indian Legend from Alaska you have not read as a YA nomination.

Lynette wrote: "Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest by Ella E. Clark"
Here is the link: Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest by Ella E. Clark

Some of the Goodreads reviewers complain that it's been sanitized.


I must confess I orginally nominated the First Nations-Native American theme for selfish reasons! I want to read Sacred Wilderness by Susan Power!
So that is my nomination for the adult book!
However of course I'll read what ever the group chooses and regardless still read Sacred Wilderness.
I also have not read many original tales so will have to do some research before I nominate anything.

I have Sacred Wilderness and Green Grass, Running Water both on my TBR list. Also Monkey Beach.

And here is a listopia that might help us find some to nominate: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

And I like this list too: 20 Native American Authors You Need to Read

OK, I can nominate Bird Girl and the Man Who Followed The Sun for YA retelling.

For YA I'd like to nominate The Girl Who Married the Moon: Tales from Native North America.

For Adult and Original I'll first have to dig through my TBR list. Lots of good noms above already, too.

Shomeret wrote: "OK, I can nominate Bird Girl and the Man Who Followed The Sun for YA retelling."

Actually Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival looks good too! Would you be interested in rereading that one as well?

OK I can nominate Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival. Be warned that it's a very dark story.

Melanti wrote: "I've no idea what to nominate!

Something by Louise Erdrich seems like an obvious choice, but I've already read The Antelope Wife. Does anyone know of another one of h..."

I read the middle grade novel The Birchbark House by Erdrich and enjoyed it.

A lot of the adult novels I was going to nominate have already been nominated! So I think I'll skip an adult nom, since there are so many good ones.

For YA, I'll nominate Bear Daughter
For original, can I nominate American Indian Trickster Tales, or is that too long?

For YA, I nominate Killer of Enemies or Skeleton Man by Joseph Bruchac, or Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mickaelson.

Margaret wrote:.For YA, I'll nominate Bear Daughter
For original, can I nominate American Indian Trickster Tales, or is that too long"


Bear Daughter is a favorite of mine. I've read it twice already and would be delighted if it were a group read so I would be able to discuss it, however I would not consider it YA. I don't know...Melanti you've read it too, what do you think? It is true that the protagonist is an adolescent at the start of the novel, but it is much more of a coming of age story and not really written the way most YA novels are.

For original tales I think it's fine to nominate a collection as long as it's not too long. I have been wanting to read some coyote trickster tales myself!

I enjoyed Bear Daughter as well.

It didn't strike me as particularly YA either other than the fact that that the main character is so young.

I was looking at American Indian Trickster Tales too, Margaret! And I also had doubts about its length.

If we're considering Bear Daughter as adult I'd like to second that nomination :) With so many great adult reads nominated already I'm not gonna add any new noms of my own. I'm hoping to see more of what others nominate for originals, though. Not really sure about originals to nominate.

Okay, since Jalilah is already nominating something by Susan Power, I will nominate Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King for my adult pick.

For the original collection, I'm nominating a collection of Sioux stories - Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Ša. It's 50-100 pgs, in public domain for those of us with e-readers, and it looks like it's more straight myths/legends compared to American Indian Stories which is partially autobiograhical. And as a bonus, it has plenty of trickster stories! Yay!

I've still got to find a YA book though.

Melanti wrote: lwas looking at American Indian Trickster Tales too, Margaret! And I also had doubts about its length. ..."

If it is too long we can always select just a few tales from it to read.

Jalilah wrote: "Melanti wrote: lwas looking at American Indian Trickster Tales too, Margaret! And I also had doubts about its length. ..."

If it is too long we can always select just a few tales from it to read."

That's what I was thinking.

Melanti wrote: "Okay, since Jalilah is already nominating something by Susan Power, I will nominate Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King for my adult pick.

For the original collection, I'm nomin..."

I almost nominated American Indian Stories for adult, but there were so many good noms I decided not to.

Jalilah wrote: "Margaret wrote:.For YA, I'll nominate Bear Daughter
For original, can I nominate American Indian Trickster Tales, or is that too long"


Bear Daughter is a favorite of mine. I've read..."

I'm fine with it being adult! I think I probably added it to my TBR list after seeing you and Melanti read it. I just assumed it was YA! I was having trouble finding a good YA I wanted to nominate. I'm feeling more like teens versus middle grade, but I couldn't find much out there. I think there needs to be more written on the subject!

Margaret wrote: ".I'm fine with it being adult! I think I probably added it to my TBR list after seeing you and Melanti read it. I just assumed it was YA! I was having trouble finding a good YA I wanted to nominate. I'm feeling more like teens versus middle grade, but I couldn't find much out there. I think there needs to be more written on the subject.."

Same here! There are lots of Adult books that are appealing, but I also am having a hard time finding YA.
We could always keep Bear Daughter YA if we can't find many other options or maybe some of the collections of Tales. The idea is to read new books from the theme. I don't know how others feel, but I don't feel the need to be so strict.

Jalilah wrote: "The idea is to read new books from the theme. I don't know how others feel, but I don't feel the need to be so strict. ..."

Sounds fine to me. We can slot Bear Daughter in whichever category is looking a bit thin.

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No HorseI'm nominating Louise Erdrich's The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse as an adult book.

I'm nominating Flight by Sherman Alexie as a YA book. It came out at about the same time as The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and the second book sucks up all the attention.

I'm seconding the choice of my neighbor Joseph Bruchac as YA.

For a collection Sherman Alexie's got a very good one, Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories .

Julia, the third category is actually "original tale" - as in the myths/folkore that inspired the retellings. We normally just nominate a single story/tale, but in this case there's so many different traditions and tales that we're mostly nominating collections instead. But unfortunately, Blasphemy doesn't qualify as an original tale.

I'm not familiar with Sherman Alexie's work. Does he incorporate a lot of legends/folklore/mythological themes in his work in general or in Flight specifically? Books need to have some sort of link back to Native American/First Nations fairy tales, folklore, or mythology to be nominated - not just be by an author of one of those ethnicities.

So here's our nominations so far. There were a lot of books tossed around that weren't explicitly nominated, so please chime in if I've left something off this list that you intended to nominate or put something in the wrong category.

Leah - I moved your nomination of The Girl Who Married the Moon to "Original tale" since it fits in better there. If you object, I can back to YA. (I know he writes fiction too, but this particular collection was presented as original tales, not stories of his own creation. I really enjoyed this collection, by the way!)

Adult:
Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival by Velma Wallis
Sacred Wilderness by Susan Power
Bear Daughter by Judith Berman
Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich

Young Adult:
Bird Girl & the Man Who Followed the Sun: An Athabaskan Indian Legend from Alaska by Velma Wallis
Killer of Enemies by Joseph Bruchac
Skeleton Man by Joseph Bruchac
Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen
Flight by Sherman Alexie
Long Man's Song by Joyce Rockwood

Original Tale/Collections:
Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest by Ella E. Clark
American Indian Trickster Tales by Richard Erdoes
Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Ša
The Girl Who Married the Moon: Tales from Native North America by Joseph Bruchac

Melanti wrote: "Leah - I moved your nomination of The Girl Who Married the Moon to "Original tale" since it fits in better there..."

No objection at all. Thanks for helping it to its rightful category :)

Melanti,

Sherman Alexie "is Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, he grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, WA, about 50 miles northwest of Spokane, WA. Alexie has published 18 books to date."

He tends to write about Native people, Flight has a Native main character, but he's a foster kid who doesn't know where he's from. This is a bit of a spoiler, but he 'becomes unstuck in time' to find out where and who he is.

Another Native American writer I love is Leslie Marmon Silko, who wrote Ceremony and, one of my favorite author collections, Storyteller. I'm not nominating anything by her because I've read her before, but if anyone's interested in Native American fiction I recommend reading her.

Julia wrote: "Melanti,

Sherman Alexie "is Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, he grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, WA, about 50 miles northwest of Spokane, WA. Alexie has published..."

I understand that, but does his work pull from myth/folklore/traditions/etc or does it just involve the general culture and history? (I assume it covers history since it involves time travel.)

I know the difference is kind of nebulous sometimes and often hard to tell when you haven't read it yet, but nothing that I've heard about his The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (which, admittedly, isn't much) led me to believe that it had a folklore/myth/legend connection, which makes me question this one.

Just being by a native author or about his/her community and their history isn't necessarily enough to qualify... We're trying to be a little more proactive our retellings are actually at least inspired by myth/fairy tales/legends/folklore, etc.



Jalilah, Chris, if you think I'm being too strict, please reign me in!

Melanti wrote: "Julia wrote: "Melanti,

Sherman Alexie "is Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, he grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, WA, about 50 miles northwest of Spokane, WA. Alexie..."

This group is for fairy and folk tales and mythology from various cultures, so I think the works suggested should have some kind of mythic element to them. They could be realistic for example like Margaret Atwoods Robber Bride or more fantasy-like, but the works should contain, be inspired by or be influenced either Fairy Tales, Folklore, legends or Myths.

Wait, I have a wonderful nomination! For adult I would second Green Grass, Running Water, but for young adult I want to nominate Long Man's Song, which was one of my very favorite books as a child yet is relatively unknown. I hope I'm not too late!

Julia wrote: "I'm nominating Flight by Sherman Alexie Flight by Sherman Alexie as a YA book. It came out at about the same time as The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and the second book sucks up all the attention.
For a collection Sherman Alexie's got a very good one, Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories Blasphemy New and Selected Stories by Sherman Alexie."

It is difficult to determine what has mythic or folkloric traditions without reading it first. As Melanti pointed out the difference is often nebulous. I remember when I saw The House of the Spirits on the Endicott Mythic reading list I wondered what was actually mythic about it. It is one of my favourite books in the world, but I could not find any particular myths in it!

From the looks of it, I think Flight probably does count as a myth inspired novel and I am fine with it being included.
However Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories does not qualify for original tales. By original tales we meant more traditional tales that have handed down for generations rather than newly written tales.
I hope this is okay!
For the record the author of Bear Daughter, Judith Berman is not Native American. She is an anthropologist and specializes in the Nations of the Pacific Northwest. Bear Daughter is a fantasy novel that blends both Native American and European mythology. In an interview she says that she finds the cover of her novel very problematic because it gives a false impression about the novel.

Jalilah wrote: "Julia wrote: "I'm nominating Flight by Sherman Alexie Flight by Sherman Alexie as a YA book. It came out at about the same time as The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and the second bo..."

Ah, I didn't know that about Bear Daughter. Do you think we should cut it?

I actually tried to find something by Alexie, but since I couldn't tell by the descriptions if the novels had any folktale aspects, I decided against nominating any.

Margaret wrote: "Jalilah wrote: "Julia wrote: "I'm nominating Flight by Sherman Alexie Flight by Sherman Alexie as a YA book. It came out at about the same time as The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian a..."

Personally I am okay, leaving it in. It was never stated the author had to be First Nations when we selected the theme. How do the others feel?
I think it more important for the orginal tale/s to be just that, original tales.

I don't think a book should be eliminated if its author is not of the nation written about. After all, that criterion would've eliminated Deathless because Valente isn't Russian, right?

However, I agree that the YA/adult books should "pull from myth/folklore/traditions/etc" and "for the original tale/s to be just that original tales" not "newly written tales".

We've never required the authors to be of the nationality/ethnicity of whatever tale they're writing. I think Bear Daughter is fine. In the Deathless thread I posted a link to an interview with her talking about whether it was okay for a non-native american to make use of those cultures. It's a controversial issue - there's been a history of exploitation, and some see books like this as more exploitation. It was an interesting interview.

Last call for nominations! I'll put up the poll either late tonight or early tomorrow.

I kept having that nagging feeling like there was something I'd forgotten and now I just remembered! Ever since last summer when it was nominated for our "Water Creature" theme I've been curious about:
Mermaids and Medicine Women: Native Myths and Legends by Basil Johnston, so that will be my nomination for ""Original Tales" if there are too many stories we can select a few. That gives us 5 choices for each category

Nice one, Jalilah!

Polls are up!
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/3...

That's a neat looking book, Jalilah!

I'd be tempted to vote for it myself if it weren't so dang expensive. $20 used on Amazon, $30 on BetterWorldBooks... And it's obscure enough I can't even get it through ILL.

Melanti wrote: "That's a neat looking book, Jalilah!

I'd be tempted to vote for it myself if it weren't so dang expensive. $20 used on Amazon, $30 on BetterWorldBooks... And it's obscure enough I can't even g..."

20$ used? Drat! And my library does not have Mermaids and Medicine Women: Native Myths and Legends either :( !
Which book did you say was available for free on- line?
That just might determine which original collection I select, availability.

Yep! That's what I saw! It might be cheaper online for you, though, since it was published in Canada.

Old Indian Legends is available online. And there's been a couple of recent paperback versions - both of this specific book and omnibuses of this plus others by the same author. The book itself is only about 50-60 long - they just tend to print other material with it to make it long enough so that people will buy it.

But my library does have The Girl Who Married the Moon: Tales from Native North America and American Indian Trickster Tales so yours might have those too. And the other one isn't that expensive as long as you're willing to buy an older edition.

Melanti wrote: "Yep! That's what I saw! It might be cheaper online for you, though, since it was published in Canada.

Old Indian Legends is available online. And there's been a couple of recent p..."

The author of Mermaids and Medicine Women: Native Myths and Legends, Basil Johnston is from Ontario. Because I'm in Ottawa even if my library does not have it I am pretty sure I could get it as an inter-library loan. However I am torn! I did some reading up on Old Indian Legends author Zitkala-Ša and I am very intriged. I'll probably read both, but don't know now which one to vote for!

I was cleaning up some of Basil Johnston's book records (he had two profiles) and noticed this book: Tales of the Anishinaubaek: Ojibway Legends


According to WorldCat, it's the same book with an updated title.

Tales of the Anishinaubaek: Ojibway Legends seems to be more widely available - I can get that through ILL or I could just camp out in the Rice U. library some rainy afternoon and read it. (Rice U. apparently doesn't participate in the Texas ILL program.)

So Mermaids and Medicine Women is a bit easier to get a hold of than we thought at first!

Awesome. With that title it is doable!

Yep! I'm kind of excited now. It's such an interesting title!

If I hadn't been poking around for alternative books about Ojibway folklore to suggest as a backup plan for those who couldn't find our selection, I never would have noticed the second profile that had the earlier edition. So, thanks for all of you who've voted for it. (I admit, earlier today, I was cursing the ground you walk on.)

Ooh, very cool!

Melanti wrote: "(I admit, earlier today, I was cursing the ground you walk on.)"

Oh man, is that why I kept tripping earlier?

Kirsten wrote: "Oh man, is that why I kept tripping earlier?"

Well, I'd assume so unless you've voted for any other nearly impossible to find books lately!

I would like to read a number of these books, so would do a buddy read for those that don't win. I also mentioned in a different thread that if a certain book is not available for people to get I don't mind switching. Honestly everything looks so good!

I'd do a buddy read on any of these as well. They all look good!

Let's play it by ear! I'm opening the threads now and I'll mention right off the bat to check libraries, ILL sources, etc.

I can vouch for the runner up - The Girl Who Married the Moon: Tales from Native North America - and think you guys would like it.

Also, there's an Amazon review of Mermaids and Medicine Women: Native Myths and Legends that mentions that the tales included are, for the most part, available from other sources, so we might be able to come up with some alternative websites/books, etc.

I'm going to try to avoid using ILL for this one and go the local university first - so I might get to see this before the rest of you guys.

Wow, I've got to say, I knew Mermaids and Medicine Women would be an issue, but I never checked the other forerunners...

My library system is fantastic, but it's let me down this round. It doesn't have a single one of the winners!

I never thought to check - I know it has copies of other books by all 3 of this rounds' authors, so I figured it'd have the ones we picked, but no! Sigh.