Review: Interesting but somewhat outdated views about Native Americans
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 7, 2011
This 1904 book has interesting original tales about American Indians. Children will enjoy the stories, but it is doubtful that pre-teen youngsters will read them because Austin fills her tales with descriptions of the environment, a subject that does not interest many youngsters. Nevertheless, teens can read and enjoy the stories and parents can read them and retell them to their younger children.The author writes that she composed her book to be used in schools to help students understood about life, because myths help children learn about life. She warns readers no to try to explain the book's myths to the children, for they need to learn the message through their own life experiences. She says that unless children can relate to myths by themselves, they have "practically no educative value."The book contains fifteen tales. The first, Basket Woman, for example, tells about a white boy who is afraid of Indians but comes to understand them through dreams. It contains an Indian version of the biblical flood that covered most of the earth. The second, which has the same characters, attempts to teach that the Indians are better off today than their ancestors. The third is about a stream that has a good life and which helps people and vegetation, until it decides to move on to what it thinks will be a better life. The fourth concerns an old Indian woman who is shunned by her people because she has strange eyes that can only see the good in people. She sees the good in an evil man, which changes him, but then, like the others, he ignores her.