The Earth under Sky Bear's Feet: Native American Poems of the Land

This picture book centers around the various compilation of the various Native American poems with nature and earth. The style in this book for the majority of the book is free verse about sky, earth, animals,and etc. It's about the Sky Bear, the constellation in the sky that watches all the Native Americans and the animals in the community. All in all, very poetic, rhythmic, and simplistic to read and enjoy.

My personal response to the book: The book was great; it provides a thumbnail sketch of various Native American tribes in the US.
Curricular connections: The curricular connections include the study of 12 Native American cultures across the US. A TL could use this book to supplement a Native American unit and to have available during Thanksgiving.

No awards for this particular book. This book is good for kindergartners and 1st graders because its a book filled with native American poems that use simple vocabulary, but the illustrations are so colorful and awesome so they will like to check out the pictures. This book is about the Sky Bear who is a constellation in the sky and he watches over all the native American people and all the animals in their community. Every two pages has a different poem about another thing that the sky bear watches over. For the kindergartners we will talk about native americans and see what their knowledge is about them. Then we will make feather hats since native americans usually wear feather head dresses. then we will read the book together with show more out hats on. After the reading they will pick one of the poems and draw their interpretation of it. The first graders will do the same thing but once they draw their interpretation they will write a sentence about their drawing. show less

Native American story poems themed around the sky, the stars, and the constellations.

Genre: poetry
Critique of Genre: This book is a compilation of various Native American poems about their lands. Most of them are free verse poems about various things of the earth, sky and animals with special meaning to their people.