Customer Reviews

The Indian How Book (Dover Children's Classics)

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This book caught my eye in the children's library. It was older and looked much loved. I had avoided it before because I thought it was a how-to book of projects for boys that came from American Indian life. It's not! It explains how the Indians did all things. For example, one chapter is titled, "The Indian Himself" and the subheadings are "How Indian Children Went to School," and "How Indians Courted," "How Indians Made Jokes," or "How Indians Painted Their Faces," etc. No illustrations. The prose is written like an uncle telling his nephews about Indian life around the dinner table -- it's real, makes you feel like you're in communication with a person, not a text. It definitely would make a good non-fiction read-aloud. It would also make a great substitute for dry and boring American history textbooks! Written before the era of political correctness, it's accurate and appreciative, with many interesting and humorous true (so claims the author) anecdotes. My only problem with it is that the author uses too much generalization. He rarely says that Iroquois do it this way, Cherokee do it that way, etc. He simply says that Indians do it this way, and I'm sure there can't be that much similiarity among all tribes. He does point out often enough the different way of doing things when it's overwhelmingly obvious that the Plains Indians just couldn't have done that. I can't wait to read it aloud to my kids (someday...).