Resources for Native American study?

What age group are you wanting to do the unit study for?

Not audio or video, but I love this book for intrducing little ones to this topic – Holling C Holling’s Book of Indians.  I don’t know why this book doesn’t seem to be as well known/acclaimed as his other books.  I like this one the best of them all!

There is also a FABULOUS book for the Lenape Indians.  It is called The Indians of New Jersey: Dickon Among the Lenapes.  It is by M.R. Harrington, and was put out by Rutgers University Press, earliest copyright 1938, and my edition, which was from my childhood, was a 1986 printing.  

This book is truly a CM beauty.  It’s filled with a lovely, engaging narrative.  It is told with passion and joy.  But even though the actual account of Dickon, the ship-wrecked English boy, is fictional, the information about the Lenapes is beyond compare.  Also, as you read through it, the illustrations and diagrams will truly aid in your understanding.  For example, the story doesn’t just say, “Granny made me my own moccasins,” it also goes on to explain how they were made and it often has illustrations of such things!  I remember devouring this book as a child, and then going to various local museums and being able to finish the sentences of the Lenape tour guides…etc.  It also has a lovely author introduction as well as a guide to the Lenape language.  This book would be a blessing to anyone interested in the Delaware Indians.  I am from (and still live) in NJ, where these Indians lived, and I have always been fascinated with the people who inhabited this area before the Europeans colonized it.

This book is a bit long -342 pages.  It is 16 chapters.  But I was easily engaged by it at the age of 8 or so.  I finally got my oldest daughter to read it a few years ago; she had refused for the longest time because it looks like a small textbook of some sort.  The cover just isn’t inviting.  Something made her pick it up about two years ago – when she was about 13.  Before I knew it, she was totally engaged.  She just read and read until it was done!

Hope this helps someone out!

Amy