I moved from Ohio to southern Appalachia in 1978 to take a temporary job teaching philosophy at the University of Tennessee. I hadn’t planned to stay, but I fell in love with the mountains. Recently I retired after a fruitful 44-year career here. Concern for this land and for my children and grandchildren led me to environmental activism and shifted my teaching and writing from mathematical logic to environmental and intergenerational ethics. Eventually I wrote or edited four books on environmental matters (two specifically on the southern Appalachian environment) in addition to three on logic and (most recently) a tome on the tricky topic of incomparable values.
Camuto’s supple prose draws the reader into a journey toward mountains that no longer exist, although they are named on some old maps: the southern Appalachians not as they are, but as they were before the European invasion. A keen historian and observant naturalist, Camuto walks deep into “what’s left of the backcountry,” documenting the hopeful reintroduction of the nearly extinct red wolf and reflecting on Cherokee place names, culture, and history. "Needless to say,” he confesses, “I never got to the Cherokee Mountains”—and, in sad irony, shortly after the book’s publication the red wolf reintroduction failed. Still, Camuto has succeeded in recording resonant reminiscences of places, peoples, and biotic populations now lost.
The southern Appalachians encompass one of the most beautiful, biologically diverse, and historically important regions of North America. In the widely acclaimed Another Country: Journeying toward the Cherokee Mountains, Christopher Camuto describes the tragic collision of natural and cultural history embedded in the region. In the spirit of Thoreau's "Walking," Camuto explores the Appalachian summit country of the Great Smoky Mountains-the historical home of the Cherokee-searching for access to the nature, history, and spirit of a magnificent, if diminished, landscape.
As the author takes the reader through old-growth forests and ancient myths, he tells of the attempted restoration of Canis…
I’ve been interested in Japanese culture, mythology, and martial arts since I was a teenager. My favorite books are those where I become completely submerged, losing myself in the story and forgetting where the main character ends and I begin. Stories that focus on an ordinary person who gets pulled into another world while remaining firmly planted in their current world. Stories where the character has to learn new skills or discover special talents; a connection to the past or to another realm; or becomes part of some mysterious group operating outside of society. When I couldn’t find enough books that fulfilled my hunger for this specific genre, I decided to write some myself!
While this urban fantasy series isn’t Japanese per se, it’s full of realistic martial arts action. I love this series because of the unique mixture of concepts, and the well-imagined and likeable characters, even the bad guys. Jane Yellowrock is a shotgun-toting, motorbike riding, kick ass woman. She’s also a Cherokee Skinwalker (shapeshifter) and a security professional who works for vampire organizations to hunt down and kill their rogues; those who can't control themselves from biting humans. The books are set in modern New Orleans, which is quite an interesting location for me. I just don’t think you can get a better or weirder combination of ideas: Cherokee mythology and vampires. It may sound like a weird concept, but there are 13 books in the series. It works.
Meet shapeshifting skinwalker Jane Yellowrock in the first novel in the New York Times bestselling series that captures “the essence of urban fantasy” (SF Site).
Jane Yellowrock is the last of her kind—a skinwalker of Cherokee descent who can turn into any creature she desires and hunts vampires for a living. But now she’s been hired by Katherine Fontaneau, one of the oldest vampires in New Orleans and the madam of Katies’s Ladies, to hunt a powerful rogue vampire who’s killing other vamps.
Amidst a bordello full of real “ladies of the night,” and a hot Cajun biker with a…
I’m an author of contemporary/urban fantasy, and an avid reader of the genre for over twenty-five years. I can still remember my very first vampire read, Secret Vampire by LJ Smith. I don't get to read as many books as I would like, partly because I take my time to ensure I don’t skim over details. This way, the story sinks in and its meaning becomes deeper and clearer. I also apply this to my own books to give the reader an immersive experience. As a British author, all of my writing is set in the UK, which I think brings a different dimension to a market that's flooded with novels based in the USA.
I remember finding this book so intriguing at the time. For a start, it's written by two authors, a mother and daughter team. Growing up I used to write with friends and family, each taking in turns to write a page and then passing it to the other for their turn. It was great fun, but ultimately ended in a mess as we were each fighting to take the story in the direction we wanted. So I enjoyed that the partnership in Marked worked.
The magic and ritual element also drew me in. As someone who dabbles in the spiritual, with card reading, candles, and the like, it was interesting to see how it could be brought into fiction in a different way while also introducing some Cherokee wisdom.
"The House of Night" series is set in a world very much like our own, except in sixteen-year-old Zoey Redbird's world, vampyres have always existed. In this first book in the series, Zoey enters the House of Night, a school where, after having undergone the Change, she will train to become an adult vampyre - that is, if she makes it through the Change. Not all of those who are chosen do. It's tough to begin a new life, away from her parents and friends, and on top of that, Zoey finds she is no average fledgling. She has been…
I’m a professional historian and life-long lover of early American history. My fascination with the American Revolution began during the bicentennial in 1976, when my family traveled across the country for celebrations in Williamsburg and Philadelphia. That history, though, seemed disconnected to the place I grew up—Arkansas—so when I went to graduate school in history, I researched in French and Spanish archives to learn about their eighteenth-century interactions with Arkansas’s Native nations, the Osages and Quapaws. Now I teach early American history and Native American history at UNC-Chapel Hill and have written several books on how Native American, European, and African people interacted across North America.
A magisterial history of Indigenous North America that places the power of Native nations at its center, telling their story from the rise of ancient cities more than a thousand years ago to fights for sovereignty that continue today
Long before the colonization of North America, Indigenous Americans built diverse civilizations and adapted to a changing world in ways that reverberated globally. And, as award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal vividly recounts, when Europeans did arrive, no civilization came to a halt because of a few wandering explorers, even when the strangers came well armed.
A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size. Then, following a period of climate change and instability, numerous smaller nations emerged, moving away from rather than toward urbanization. From this urban past, egalitarian government structures, diplomacy, and complex economies spread…
I moved from Ohio to southern Appalachia in 1978 to take a temporary job teaching philosophy at the University of Tennessee. I hadn’t planned to stay, but I fell in love with the mountains. Recently I retired after a fruitful 44-year career here. Concern for this land and for my children and grandchildren led me to environmental activism and shifted my teaching and writing from mathematical logic to environmental and intergenerational ethics. Eventually I wrote or edited four books on environmental matters (two specifically on the southern Appalachian environment) in addition to three on logic and (most recently) a tome on the tricky topic of incomparable values.
It rings with awe-struck musings on Bartram’s explorations, begun just before the American revolution, of the lush and bountiful landscapes of the southern British colonies. Bartram’s effusive descriptions of the astonishingly profuse flora and fauna, replete with taxonomic names, provide a baseline for gauging the steep ecological declines that followed. The Penguin edition includes an appreciative introduction by American writer James Dickey, best known for his novel Deliverance.
At the request of Dr. Fothergill, of London, to search the Floridas, and the western parts of Carolina and Georgia, for the discovery of rare and useful productions of nature, chiefly in the vegetable kingdom; in April, 1773, I embarked for Charleston, South Carolina, on board the brigantine Charleston Packet, Captain Wright, the brig——, Captain Mason, being in company with us, and bound to the same port. We had a pleasant run down the Delaware, 150 miles to Cape Henlopen, the two vessels entering the Atlantic together. For the first twenty-four hours, we had a prosperous gale, and were cheerful…
After being transported to
a vivid, foreboding past by Eddie Chuculate’s atmospheric short story “Galveston Bay, 1826,” I was eager to get a hold of the author’s new nonfiction
account of his own coming of age in Oklahoma and the path he took to journalism
and storytelling.
Mainly written at an easy, conversational pace, This Indian Kid: A Native American Memoir
occasionally slips into exquisite lyricism. In all, it is a potent pleasure.
Award-winning author Eddie Chuculate recounts his experience growing up in rural Oklahoma, from boyhood to young manhood, in an evocative and vivid voice.
Scholastic Focus is the premier home of thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and thoughtfully designed works of narrative nonfiction aimed at middle-grade and young adult readers. These books help readers learn about the world in which they live and develop their critical thinking skills so that they may become dynamic citizens who are able to analyze and understand our past, participate in essential discussions about our present, and work to grow and build our future.
I am an award-winning author of sex-positive contemporary romance and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. As a reader, I’ve grown weary of Native American romance characters who are mostly caricatures and stereotypes. Last year, I went on a quest to find romance stories that portrayed contemporary Native characters experiencing love as they navigated real life in the 21st century. And who better to tell those stories than Native authors using their own voice? Now that I’ve found several great Native romance authors, I want to share these recommendations far and wide. Come, come, read Native romance!
I don’t usually read billionaire romance because the billionaires are often crappy humans, and I don’t enjoy reading about crappy people getting a happily-ever-after. This book was a great exception. Adam Redhawk isn’t just a billionaire, he’s an Eastern Band Cherokee billionaire who was taken from his home and community when he was a child. Now he’s hired a PI to help him find his long-lost siblings to reconnect with the past that was stolen from him. I enjoyed the romance and the characters a lot. If you read billionaire romance, let this be one of them.
Will the woman he can’t resist be his downfall? Find out, only from USA TODAY bestselling author Robin Covington!
In the boardroom—and the bedroom—they’re on fire.
But will her secrets destroy them both?
Investigator Tess Lynch once helped Adam Redhawk find his Cherokee family. Now the self-made tech billionaire wants her to root out his company’s saboteur—and share his bed. But as passion builds between them, the private eye pursues a plan of her own—to get even for the way Adam’s adoptive father ruined hers. Until an unexpected pregnancy changes everything…
From Harlequin Desire: Luxury, scandal, desire—welcome to the lives…
I'm an author of dark fiction from Wales, UK, who, for many years, taught primary school children. In my own writing I often gravitate towards the child’s point of view, and the same can be said of the fiction I choose to read. As a teacher I dealt with children’s issues on a day-to-day basis, and sometimes you wonder how these kids survive, or at least you understand the trauma they carry for the rest of their lives. But what about those who manage to rise above it? Those are the characters whose stories I love to read. The child lurks in all of us, and we must never lose sight of that fact.
Although the cover did nothing to attract me, it turned out to be one of those rare books you want everybody to read. Even though it was quite a long book, at around 480 pages, I loved every single sentence. The plot, the references to Native American culture, characterization, you name it. Superb.
Stories help us understand ourselves, another culture, or a new student sitting alone at a nearby desk. While teaching, working side by side, and living on the Navajo Nation for nearly twenty years, I wanted to share some of the special and surprising aspects of their culture—especially the kindness, wisdom, and the laughter Navajo people shared with me. Laughter is a holy gift for the Navajo people. First Laugh shows the reader why this is true.
My books have been given a variety of national and international awards but the best reward is when a child looks up while reading one of my books, quietly grins, and then proudly says, “I am in this book.”
This is a delightful journey of seeing the thankfulness expressed by the Cherokee people for the gifts of each season. Reader and listeners might pause and think about “what is something for which I am thankful?” Page by page this question is answered as one becomes aware of the gifts we often take for granted—water to refresh us; air to sustain us; earth to hold us; and family who love us, and thus we give thanks.
2019 Sibert Honor Book 2019 Orbis Pictus Honor Book NPR's Guide To 2018’s Great Reads 2018 Book Launch Award (SCBWI) Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2018 School Library Journal Best Books of 2018
2018 JLG selection 2019 Reading the West Picture Book Award
The Cherokee community is grateful for blessings and challenges that each season brings. This is modern Native American life as told by an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
The word otsaliheliga (oh-jah-LEE-hay-lee-gah) is used by members of the Cherokee Nation to express gratitude. Beginning in the fall with the new year and ending in summer, follow…
As a child I was drawn to the forest by its aesthetics. I felt as if I were wandering through a masterpiece painting. As I grew older, I wanted to know more about the many working parts of nature. I quickly learned this: If I wanted to know nature intimately, I needed to know what the Native Americans knew. After years of study and honing skills, I undertook seasonal, self-imposed “survival trips” in remote areas of the National Forest. As an adult I served as a naturalist for the Georgia Conservancy, wilderness director for High Meadows Camp, and as director of my own wilderness school – Medicine Bow – in the Appalachian Mountains.
Because Mr. Newcomb’s book (above) covers only herbs, shrubs, and vines, the survival student needs a good tree identifier (field guide) to cover “the standing people.” (The Cherokee name for “trees.”) Because I live in Georgia, this book serves me well. If you live outside of the Southeast, you’ll want to find a book germane to your area. Trees of Georgia contains good photographs of leaves, bark, flowers, buds, and fruits of over 200 species.
This field guide identifies 205 species and varieties, with plant descriptions that highlight differences between similar taxa. It also includes range maps and botanical keys for summer and winter.
I am Eric Cheyfitz, the Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters at Cornell University, where I am on the faculty of The American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program and its former director. Because of my expertise in federal Indian law, I have been a consultant in certain legal matters involving Native issues. Some of the many books I teach and have written about are on my Shepherd list. My work is sustaining: writing and teaching about Native life and literature is a way of joining a crucial conversation about the survival of the planet through living a socially, politically, and economically balanced life.
I value Fort Marion Prisoners and the Trauma of Native Education by the Cherokee writer Diane Glancy because it is an empathetic history, one that compels me to understand its subjects from their perspective, Plains Indian prisoners taken captive defending their lands from the U.S. invasion and shipped to Fort Marion Prison in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1875. There, the prisoners were subject to a regime of reeducation in order to “kill the Indian and save the man,” as the head of the prison and founder of the Carlisle Indian School Brigadier General Richard Henry Pratt stated it.
This regime subsequently became the model for the Indian boarding schools. But Glancy brings home that this model of “dislocation” is “at the heart of [all] education,” such as mine: a Jewish boy educated in an Episcopalian school where the curriculum without a thought erased my own culture.
At the end of the Southern Plains Indian wars in 1875, the War Department shipped seventy-two Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, and Caddo prisoners from Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida. These most resistant Native people, referred to as "trouble causers," arrived to curious, boisterous crowds eager to see the Indian warriors they knew only from imagination. Fort Marion Prisoners and the Trauma of Native Education is an evocative work of creative nonfiction, weaving together history, oral traditions, and personal experience to tell the story of these Indian prisoners.
Resurrecting the voices and experiences of the prisoners…
