This week’s story is The First Strawberries: A Cherokee Story retold by Joseph Bruchac, pictures by Anna Vojtech. Originally Cherokee Indians were an Indian nation living in the area of what would later become the Southeast United States. Beginning in the 1830s and 1840s many Cherokee people were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma under the Indian Removal Act. This traditional story about the “origin” of strawberries and the healing power of forgiveness, kindness and taking responsibility for one’s actions is masterfully told by Bruchac (a world renowned author, storyteller and Indigenous scholar), and illustrated by Anna Vojtech who has shown herself to be able to illustrate stories from many different cultural traditions with sensitivity and verve. For more about Bruchac see my appreciation of him under “The Teachers” and check out Anna Vojtech’s work at http://www.avojtech.com/Enjoy!
*Teaching note: If you choose to share Native American stories with your students make sure that you don’t only share traditional tales like this one, but also stories written about contemporary Indigenous life so as to not perpetuate the myth that Indian people have not survived into modern day society. See Debbie Reese’s magisterial website https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/ for lots of great ideas, and listen to Native America Calling at https://www.nativeamericacalling.com/?s=summer+reading for timely reccomendations for summer reading.