Children of the Longhouse

Just finished up reading this as part of our homeschooling curriculum this year. What a gem this book is! Both my boys (9 & 13) were super interested in it and it kept their attention. Great way to learn about Indigenous cultures and traditions through story. Highly recommend!

This year my fourth grade class read the book Children of the Longhouse as a book club book. They were divided into groups of 4 and 5, and each day they would prepare a section of the book to read, and discuss it. Then the leader that day of each group shared what they thought. I don't want to spoil the story, but we were examining the relationships that the characters and the community in the book had to nature, and my students loved that. They found it interesting to learn about the beliefs, and that the challenges people had to face and overcome. They loved the climax and the ending too. Characters that they had felt were "bad guys" led to discussions of what options people in another culture might have which would necessitate them doing things that seem bad to us, like disobeying adult advice. I love the way this book fleshes out a pre European existence in the Northeast that helps us picture what life might have been like in an Iroquois village. We love the role that LaCross plays. My students use the Iroquois word for it. I pointed out the glossary at the back with pronunciations for Mohawk words, and my students loved using them and would even discuss how to correctly pronounce them. The book introduced my students to many ideas that they had never been exposed to, and they cared about the characters a lot. They also loved discussing the book more in an in depth way, and then hearing what other groups had had to say. I was interesting how similar the things that each group shared were. We can see that we need to shift our attitudes and be more connected to the natural world all around us.

This is a kid's book, which is well illustrated, and useful. I have worked as a storyteller in schools. Kids of all backgrounds love native stories! All of Joseph Bruchac's books are high quality, museum pieces, just really good, the apotheosis [ideal] of what a storybook could be like. Journey to the Ancestral Self: The Native Lifeway Guide to Living in Harmony with the Earth Mother (Bk.1) gives a very good description of the native lifeways around stories, and Whispers of the Ancients: Native Tales for Teaching and Healing in Our Time gives another view of native storytelling. The Original Instructions: Reflections of an Elder on the Teachings of the Elders, Adapting Ancient Wisdom to the Twenty-First Century is another book that gives you native context, by an author who also has native storybooks in print, including The Children of the Morning Light: Wampanoag Tales as Told By Manitonquat . Entering into native lifeways is not necessarily judgeable by white man culture, as House of Shattering Light: Life as an American Indian Mystic shows. One thing one notices in native cultures is that they ask new questions, something like one sees in Quantum Power Questions . I find native metaphysics to be similar to Quantum Mechanics. While not a native book, Matrix Energetics: The Science and Art of Transformation gives some ideas on how life would work, from that perspective. The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin / The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin has stories about tricksters, which are not dissimilar to native stories. teachingdrum.org used to have a list of books of native stories, which is the most comprehensive I've seen. That is a nonprofit, and I have no connection with them, this cites the info resource only. All storytelling is fascinating. Renard the Fox is one example of European stories about animals, which are not totally dissimilar. Stories are fascinating. If you want to entrance, train, entertain, educate, and improve children, nothing is faster or easier than storytelling.

Bought this book for a new teacher building up her book collection for her new classroom. It was a hit!

I recommend this book for its story, cultural accuracy, and high interest action. First it is an exciting story of how conflicts arise and can be resolved with an exciting lacrosse game at the end. How cool is that? But the cultural and historical details make this a fascinating read for all ages. If you want to know about the lives of Native Americans in the New York area, written by a Native American, and put into an historically accurate story, this is a great read. I would recommend this as a high interest type of reader for middle school readers, one that would challenge them as well. The story could be about conflicts today, but the action is naturally more intense. If you are looking for an accurate portrait of Native American life, Bruchac is a wonderful author for you to choose. It is hard to find good books about northeastern Native Americans.

We really enjoyed this book as a family. My children were enthralled with characters and depiction of life in a Longhouse village. We supplemented this book with others about the Iroquois Nation and East Coast Native Americans for our homeschooling unit. It was a hit.

I read this book with my kids (11,8) as part of our unit on Native Americans before colonization. They both really enjoyed it. It helped to humanize history for them and show them that although the cultural practices were different, the characters experienced some of the same feelings, relationship challenges, and personal struggles and triumphs that we experience today.

This is a great book. There's a massive shortage of children's books written by Natives, especially ones that give a picture of pre-European America, and if you've noticed that, THIS IS THE BOOK YOU'RE LOOKING FOR to fill that hole in your home school curriculum/child's library. It's a "boy book," but my seven year old girl got through it without any complaints except that she wanted me to read ahead so I could tell her if anything scary happened. I would say that the plot is a little slow, the main story pauses a lot for background information or traditional stories. But that's not really a complaint, I don't think it's even worth taking off one star. Almost anything by Joseph Bruchac is worth your money, and this one is no exception.

Demandé par l'école pour lecture en cours d'année.

An interesting insight into the experiences of Ohkwa'ri an 11yr old indian boy of the Mohawks. Ohkwa'ri had fallen out with some of the older boys for telling the elders about a raid they had planned that would have damaged the peace between tribes. A lacrosse game was to be played and Ohkwa'ri was given the honour of playing with the older men against the young men of the tribe, the ones Ohkwa'ri had spoken out about intended to harm him to get their revenge. A pleasant well written book, worth a read.