Relates the tale in which the creation of the world was begun by the animals after a woman fell down to earth from the sky country, and how it was finished by her two sons, one who was good-spirited and another who was evil-spirited.

Iroquois myths and legends were an important way for customs, beliefs, and histories to be passed down orally through the generations. These myths often explain natural events. In this creation myth, the creation of Earth by Sky Woman and Big Turtle is told. The Iroquois nature myth is retold in this brilliantly illustrated Native American Myth. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Short Tales is an imprint of Magic Wagon, a division of ABDO.

Breathing new life into traditional storytelling, David McLimans takes an exciting step into the world of folktales with another stunning visual feast. At the start of Big Turtle, the world only had two parts: the animals in the lower Water World and the people above in the Sky World. When Sky Girl falls to the sea, she is saved by two beautiful swans but is unable to return to her sky home. Big Turtle suggests building a new home for Sky Girl on his great shell using earth from the bottom of the sea, so Otter, Muskrat, and Beaver each attempt to reach the ocean's bottom. Only little Toad is able to bring enough earth to the surface to place on Big Turtle's back-creating a new world between the sea and sky for Sky Girl, who becomes the Earth's first person.

In this companion to the bestselling Picture a Tree, Barbara Reid has us look up . . . way up Wherever we may be, we share the same sky. But every hour, every day, every season, whether in the city or the forest, it is different. The sky tells many stories: in the weather, in the clouds, in the stars, in the imagination. Renowned artist Barbara Reid brings her unique vision to a new topic - the sky around us. In brilliant Plasticine illustrations, she envisions the sky above and around us in all its moods. Picture the sky. How do you feel?

This powerful Iroquois creation myth is greatly enhanced by luscious watercolor illustrations. A wonderful read-aloud book.

Winner of the 2003 Trillium Book Award "Stories are wondrous things," award-winning author and scholar Thomas King declares in his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. "And they are dangerous." Beginning with a traditional Native oral story, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, gracefully elucidating North America's relationship with its Native peoples. Native culture has deep ties to storytelling, and yet no other North American culture has been the subject of more erroneous stories. The Indian of fact, as King says, bears little resemblance to the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the construct so powerfully and often destructively projected by White North America. With keen perception and wit, King illustrates that stories are the key to, and only hope for, human understanding. He compels us to listen well.

"Situated within the area stretching from Georgian Bay in the north to Lake Simcoe in the east (also known as Wendake), the Wendat Confederacy flourished for two hundred years. By the mid-seventeenth century, however, Wendat society was under attack. Disease and warfare plagued the community, culminating in a series of Iroquois assaults that led to the dispersal of the Wendat people in 1649. Yet the Wendat did not disappear, as many historians have maintained. In Dispersed but Not Destroyed, Kathryn Magee Labelle examines the creation of a Wendat diaspora in the wake of the Iroquois attacks. By focusing the historical lens on the dispersal and its aftermath, she extends the seventeenth-century Wendat narrative. In the latter half of the century, Wendat leaders continued to appear at councils, trade negotiations, and diplomatic ventures -- including the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701 -- relying on established customs of accountability and consensus. Women also continued to assert their authority during this time, guiding their communities toward paths of cultural continuity and accommodation. Through tactics such as this, the power of the Wendat Confederacy and their unique identity was maintained. Turning the story of Wendat conquest on its head, this book demonstrates the resiliency of the Wendat people and writes a new chapter in North American history."--Publisher's website.

The story of Atlas and Heracles Atlas knows how it feels to carry the weight of the world; but why, he asks himself, does it have to be carried at all? In Weight — visionary and inventive, yet completely believable and relevant to the questions we ask ourselves every day — Winterson’s skill in turning the familiar on its head to show us a different truth is put to stunning effect. When I was asked to choose a myth to write about, I realized I had chosen already. The story of Atlas holding up the world was in my mind before the telephone call had ended. If the call had not come, perhaps I would never have written the story, but when the call did come, that story was waiting to be written. Rewritten. The recurring language motif of Weight is “I want to tell the story again.” My work is full of Cover Versions. I like to take stories we think we know and record them differently. In the retelling comes a new emphasis or bias, and the new arrangement of the key elements demands that fresh material be injected into the existing text. Weight moves far away from the simple story of Atlas’s punishment and his temporary relief when Hercules takes the world off his shoulders. I wanted to explore loneliness, isolation, responsibility, burden, and freedom too, because my version has a very particular end not found elsewhere. —from Jeanette Winterson’s Foreword to Weight