Native American Languages

Children's Literature

This volume is part of the "Native American Life" series, which seeks to dispel common misrepresentations of Native Americans. The senior-consulting editor, Dr. Troy Johnson, describes the goals of the series in an introduction. The use of many inserts, sidebars, color photos and drawings mixed with a moderate amount of text helps give the book an appealing, reader-friendly appearance. Although the book's main focus seems to be the Untied States, some information on Canadian and Latin American Indian languages is included. Inexplicably, a sidebar on the Hawaiian language is included on a page about the Cheyenne. Anthropologist Wes Jernigan found over-generalizations and several errors related to the origins of the word "goose." Also, while a good cultural map is essential, there is no map. This book is probably too inaccurate to be useful. A chronology, glossary, index, bibliography, and Internet resources list are included. 2003, Mason Crest Publishers,
— Gisela Jernigan