Itse Selu: Cherokee Harvest Festival

As adults prepare to celebrate the harvesting of the corn, Little Wolf makes his usual rounds--bathing in the river, checking with his grandmother on the progress of his new moccasins, playing a game called gada yosdi --while anxiously awaiting the start of the festival. Attempting to portray Cherokee life before the advent of the Europeans, Pennington's disjointed, unfocused text is not engrossing, but it does string together a few valuable and engaging bits of Cherokee education and ritual. For example, elders teach Little Wolf and his friend to observe a spider spinning its web before they learn to weave their own fishing nets. Through considerable collaboration with anthropologists and historians, Pennington provides authentic accounts of the feast, a traditional folktale and the sacred corn dance. Stewart's illustrations, while somewhat flat, convey a sense of the characters' peacefulness and contentment. Cherokee vocabulary and pronunciation play large roles in the text--appropriately, given the advanced literacy of the Cherokee nation (a postscript tells of Sequoyah, who singlehandedly devised the written Cherokee language; a syllabary is included). All ages. (Apr.)