The book closes with an extensive afterword including more information on each 'presentation,' from the facts presented to the meaning of the accompanying artwork a timeline from the end of the Civil War to the present day a glossary of terms a list of sources and an author's note. Conceived as a series of twelve presentations given by the students at a Native community school on Indigenous People's Day, the topics explored include: Assimilation, Allotment, Indian New Deal, Termination, Relocation, Tribal Activism, Self-Determination, Indian Child Welfare & Education, Religious Freedom, Economic Development, Language Revival, and Sovereign Resurgence. The best audience for this may actually be the adults who are reading the book to children and become curious enough to want to read more on this important subject for themselves.Īuthor Traci Sorell and illustrator Frané Lessac, who previously collaborated on the bilingual picture-book We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga, turn in this present volume to the history of America's Native Nations, and their tradition of resistance to cultural, political and geographic encroachment on the part of the United States. The pictures are okay, but even for them you have to access the end notes to fully understand what is being depicted. use profits to develop business and employment.' The many pages of end matter seem to have the same balance of too little and too much information. lowered the government's financial duty to tribes nationwide. Meanwhile, I can't imagine younger readers doing anything except zoning out and getting restless as you read aloud to them phrases like '. The information seems too broad and vague for an elementary student to use as a source of information for schoolwork. I'm not entirely sure who the intended audience is.

Presented as if it were a school project by various fictional students, each two-page spread is like a Power Point slide with an image, a short, high-level overview blurb of a concept, some supporting bullet points, and repetition of the title refrain. Vital information in a format that fails to do it justice.

Traci sorell we are still here