Jay Miller (2) (1947–)

Jay Miller’s Native Americans is a simplified survey of Native American tribes, cultures, lifestyles, and traditions. The book is primarily geared towards middle- and upper-elementary readers with its large font size and straightforward, unfettered prose. Miller, who (according to the “About the Author” page) is a member of the Delaware Wolf clan, presents Native Americans without any overt biases – positive or negative. Almost every single page contains a photograph or an show more illustration of indigenous people and tradition, and Miller does a good job of breaking down complex ideas into easily-digestible explanations.

That being said, the “children’s book” format does suffer from oversimplification at times. For instance, when discussing forced assimilation of Native Americans, Miller writes that “Native Americans were told that their languages were too hard to speak and their religions were false. This made them sad.” This gross reduction of cultural destruction is painfully comical, and does not begin to convey the pain and frustration experienced by thousands and thousands of human beings.

Despite its flaws, Jay Miller’s Native Americans does serve as an effective (albeit highly-simplified) survey of indigenous American cultures. Young readers who might not be ready to face the horrors of genocide will be able to gather some key knowledge from Miller’s book; hopefully, one day this will lead them to further examinations of native culture, tradition, and experience.

Citation:
Miller, Jay. Native Americans. Chicago: Children’s Press, 1993. Print. show less

This book is simple and sweet to the point of American Indian Festivals. it would be a great resource to teach young children how to research topics of interest especially regarding a unit of American Indian culture.This book shows real life camera pictures of American Indians and their cultural festivals.

American Indians relied solely on their environment for the foods they needed. Squash and sunflowers are native to North America. Every staple food in the Americans was represented in one of the Return Foods Rituals of Thanksgiving. In California, the staplee was acorns. So men climbed the trees to shake loose the acorns, and women collected them. But raw acorns have a poison inside, so the women ground them up and ran hot. water thorough the flour to wash it away.
Throughout the Great Lakes show more fish and wild rice,not really a kind of rice, were the staples.
To catch a seal, Inuit patiently waited looking for a blow hole, when seal come up to the surface of the water to breathe.
The people of North America learned how to farm and called corn, beans and squash "three sisters", because they planted them together.

Many of today's favorite foods, such as turkey, cranberries, vanilla, and chocolate, were discoverd by native North Americans.

They were good conservationists because they took what they needed with skill and care they lived well without polluting the water, the land, or the air. Today, we have much to learn from them. show less

has a lot of nudity in it.... fine history book but maybe not for elementary students - Ruthie