Read Native American Stories For Kids – 12 Traditional Stories from indigenous tribes across North America free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Tom Pecore Weso's Native American Stories for Kids is a collection of twelve traditional tales for 6 year olds, gathered from peoples right across North America.
Each story comes from a different nation, from the Menominee of the Great Lakes to the Haida on the Pacific coast. After each one there's a short page about the people who tell it. Where they live now, what they eat, what they make, how many of them there are today. So your reader hears the story and then meets the real people behind it.
There's a lovely mix. In the Menominee story the Sun keeps slipping over on the ice (he lands on his bottom!) until his warmth melts the frozen world. In the Cherokee one, lazy Rabbit won't help dig the well, steals the water and gets stuck fast to a wolf made of tar. Then he talks his way into the briar patch.
A Paiute story tells how a young mountain sheep climbed so high he became the North Star. In a Nez Percé tale, Beaver hides in the mud and steals a burning coal from the selfish pine trees.
Lots of them explain how something came to be. Why there are two great mountains near Denali. Why rabbits live in thorny thickets. Why you can make fire by rubbing willow sticks together. Young children love a "so that's why" ending, and there are plenty here.
The sentences are short and clear, so it's a very easy book to read aloud. Each story is a nice bedtime length too.
These are traditional stories, and a couple of them don't soften things. A Haida boy drowns in the river (he comes back as Salmon Boy, but he does drown first). A Miwok hero fights a grizzly bear for hours, kills it and skins it. If your child is upset by that sort of thing, you might want to read those two together. The rest are gentle, funny or quietly magical.
It's a great way in for a child who loves animal stories and wants to know where the world came from.
If they love Rabbit's trick with the briar patch, try Lapin Plays Possum. Lapin is a rabbit from the Louisiana bayous who's every bit as lazy and cheeky, forever fooling big, slow Bouki.
A library hand-picked by an English teacher, delivered through a calm, ad-free app. If your child already loves reading, we keep up.
7-day free trial. Then £7.99/month.
