Ramona Maher

Personal Response: I absolutely loved this story and need to have it in my school library. I work with Navajo students' and I love how this book depicts life on the reservation and Navajo culture. This book gives the month of the year and a snippet of what happened to Alice Yazzie during that month. This book really gets into lots of the cultural clash issues. For example, Alice Yazzie speaks out about Columbus at school. She also isn't ready to conform to what the preacher's wife expects of her. In the back of the book, Carl Gorman explains some of the portions of the book, such as the Navajo words for the months of the year.
Probably my favorite part of the story is what Alice Yazzie says after visiting Disneyland:

"I missed frybread," says Alice Yazzie.
"And I missed you, Grandfather.
The worst thing was: nobody listened.
The nicest thing was coming back here."

AAAHHH...That is how I feel when I come back to New Mexico after being gone for a while!

Library/Classroom Uses:

My students could really relate to this book. I think I might try to have them write their own version of this story. This story is a little bit data, and maybe my students could bring it into the 21st century to share the variances in Navajo life today.… (lisätietoja)