Read Online Brother Eagle, Sister Sky Documented By Chief Seattle Contained In Paperback

Jeffers illustrates a visual narrative set to the adapted words of Chief Seattle c,c.inas the U. S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs served the Chief a treaty document to legally cede land to settlers.
The illustrations are fineline pens with ink and dyes over erased pencil drawings, Each twopage section features either a singlepage image and a singlepage illustration or primarily a twopage illustration with firstperson narrated text in a corner.
Some readers might take issue with source material given the unsettled historical debate around the veracity of Chief Seattle's words and their meaning, and some readers might take issue with the possible textual and visual implication that indigenous cultures might no longer exist.
However, some readers should be impressed with both the illustrations and the dual themes of interconnectedness of the natural world and the importance of human choice in sustainable, natural stewardship.
This is one of my favorite kids books! The famous words that are attributed to Chief Seattle are illustrated beautifully in this children's book.
But here's the best part: there are faces hidden in the rocks and trees, and it's a lot of fun looking for them.
This book is often used in classrooms as an example of environmental writing for children and as the haunting, poetic words of a Native American leader.
However, the book has also been criticized, One of the biggest criticisms of this book is the charge of inauthenticity in the words of Chief Seattle.
In an end note, Jeffers says she adapted the letter of Chief Seattle as it is quoted in Joseph Campbells The Power of Myth, pages.
It is possible that Campbell, and then Jeffers, copied a fictional version of Seattles words that have come to be accepted as truth, even among some Native Americans.
According to one critic, "The National Archives, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Library of Congress each year receive numerous requests for the original text of the statements attributed to the old chief.
The United States Information Agency has received similar inquiries from persons and institutions in many foreign lands.
Unfortunately, no one has been able to locate either the letter or a reliable text of the speech.
” Clark, Jerry L. "Thus Spoke Chief Seattle: The Story of An Undocumented Speech" Prologue Magazine, Spring, Vol,, No.

There is an additional problem with the illustrations in this book,
Although Seattle was Suquamish and Duhamish, from the Puget Sound area, the illustrations feature Indians on horseback who appear to be Plains Indians, and indeed the jacket states that Jeffers “consulted with Native Americans, especially with members of the Lakota Sioux Nation, who also inspired many of the paintings for the book.
” There is no explanation of why Jeffers chose to use drawings of Lakota Sioux Indians to illustrate a speech attributed to a Northwest Indian, but the illustrations, while beautiful, add to the feeling of inauthenticity.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Grade Level: K
This is a really great book about the values and traditions of Native Americans.
I really liked how much this book emphasized the importance of caring for nature and the earth.
I think children can learn not only a lot about Native Americans, but also about how it is everyone's responsibility to take care of the earth.
The illustrations with this story were really great, and I loved all the drawings of the different things in nature.
Gorgeous illustrations, however let me refer to my class notes on this book:
Problematic Areas:
At leastversions of Seattles speech
He didn't speak English, so they were translations he was angry b/c the tribe was going to have to move
The author has adapted/changed the speech

Environmental responsibility does not appear to be the topic of these versions.


Longstanding stereotypes are reinforced in the illustrations,
Horses appear inofillustrations and the Suquamish and Duwamish people were not horse people the horses, buckskin and feathered headdress reflect the Plains Indians not the Suquamish/Duwamish people of the Pacific NW
Jeffers was speaking as a nonNative speaking for Natives The illustrations were pretty but the faces in the scenery were creepy and just plain weird.
I understood what she was trying to communicate with those faces, that humans are apart of nature, but I feel she missed the mark.
I liked the “speech” until I read the authors note saying it was not a direct translation and that the “speech” may not have been a speech but a letter.
I would also have liked to see the words in Chief Seattles native language, I would have been unable to understand a word but I think it would have been a great tribute to the Chief, his people, and their ideas.
Plus I like looking a foreign languages,.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this, When I get a picture book I expect it to be childrenfriendly vocabulary and simpler language and sentences.
This was a very adult subject and way of looking at things, with a very deep and philosophical viewpoint that only an adult would understand and fully be able to grasp.
And that's because an adult said it, This is a speech that Chief Seattle gave, and I didn't know that when I started reading.
So I found the format not really suited for a children's picture book, That was the biggest problem I had with it, that kids wouldn't really understand it,

The illustrations are ok but not my style, They're that sketchy kind with crisscross black lines through everything and I don't like that, There is also a lot of writing which takes a while to read through, much longer than an average picture book.


The content is the best part, It gives a glimpse of how Native Americans view the world and what they value, This is one of the rare children's books that doesn't gloss over or downplay what the Europeans did to the Indians.
It says that they waged a bloody war against the Indians, which is probably a little violent for kids, but it teaches them the true history in no uncertain terms.
The author also wrote that they claimed all of the Indians' land for themselves and only let them live on small pieces of land.


Chief Seattle showed the connection Indians had with the land,
He asked how you can buy the sky and own the rain and wind, He was taught that the earth is sacred to his people, every part of it, Nothing seemed too small to them, because he listed pine needles, the shore and insects as being holy to them.


The sap running through the trees was as known to them as the blood in their veins.
They're a part of the earth and the earth is a part of them, The flowers are their sisters, The animals are their brothers, Water is the blood of their ancestors and the sound it makes is their ancestor's voice.
Rivers quench their thirst, carried their canoes and fed their children, They gave the river the same kindness they'd give to a brother,

The wind that gave them their first breath also received their last sigh, The earth doesn't belong to them they belong to the earth, The earth is their mother and what happens to it happens to all the songs and daughters of earth.


It was sad when Chief Seattle said that the destiny of the white people was a mystery to them.
He asked what would happen when the buffalo were all slaughtered and the wild horses tamed, and there were no more secrets of the forest.
He mentioned talking wires, and it was neat to learn the names they had for things back then and learn what was happening in the world when he was alive.


He knew the thicket and eagle would be gone, and foresaw a time when they would say bye to the pony and the hunt.
"It will be the end of living, and the beginning of survival, " That was really sad.

"This we know: All things are connected like the blood that unites us,
We did not weave the web of life,
We are merely a strand in it.

Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves, "

That's a really profound way of looking at it, that everything and everyone on earth is connected and that whatever you do to the earth is doing it to yourself.


He told the white people at the gathering that if they sold their land to them to care for it like they have, to remember how it was when they were given it and to preserve the land for their children's children and love it as they have.
That was really sad knowing what happened, It gave me chills and it's really sad that they asked for that but we all know where the world has ended up.


Jeffers explained at the end that Chief Seattle had spoken "with a natural eloquence stemming from his oral tradition.
"

The book had a way more powerful message than I realized, "What matters is that Chief Seattle's words inspiredand continue to inspirea most compelling truth: In our zeal to build and possess, we may lose all that we have.
We have

come late to environmental awareness, but there was a thundering message delivered a century ago by many of the great Native American chiefs, among them Black Elk, Red Cloud, and Seattle.
"

She said destroying nature or anything in it was like destroying life itself to them.
"Their words were not understood in their time, Now they haunt us. Now they have come true, and before it is too late we must listen, "

That was a little scary, a little doom and gloom and way severe for a children's book.
I thought this whole thing was more suited to adults, It was amazing that they thought of the earth and these issues so long ago, way before conservation and environmentalism was even a thing.
It shows that their way of life was really earthfriendly and white people should have listened to them and not been so superior thinking their ways were so much better, when the Indians had respected the earth all along.
I love this book. I bought it for my daughter many years ago, And I've always hung on to it because I love the artwork and especially the message.
Chief Seattle is very special to me, And no, it might be difficult for small children to understand, but you can reword it for them and still keep the same message.
I really liked this book, The illustration was amazing. This book is about how the Native American values the earth, respects everything and how it ties into each other.
As the white man settled in America, the way of life changed for the Native Americans.
This book mentions how they questioned their own survival, I realize after reading this book that the Native American's believe you can not buy what is given to people as a gift from Mother Earth.
.