Ages: 9-11

 The Journal of Jesse Smoke : A Cherokee Boy, Trail of Tears, 1838 (My Name Is America)
by Joseph Bruchac

Author Joseph Bruchac is Abenaki himself, not Cherokee, but he’s spent many years studying the Cherokee and their history and it shows in this remarkable story about Jesse Smoke, a Cherokee boy on the edge of manhood. Educated at a mission school, where he has learned to speak English as well as Cherokee and to read and write, Jesse uses his hard-won skills to keep a diary of his life. On its pages, he records his days on the farm on which he and his mother and sisters live, his religious views on life, Cherokee folk tales and stories, and the growing unrest between the Indians and the U.S. Government. The diary ends with his telling of the forced removal westward of the entire tribe (better known as "The Trail of Tears").

The diary may be fictional, but Bruchac doesn’t gloss over facts in it. Jesse tells of the violence and prejudice that Cherokees often endured, the dangers of drinking alcohol, and the looting, burning, and grave robbing that went on as the Cherokees were forced out of their homes and off the land they had lived on and farmed for generations.

The book ends with a fictional epilogue, a historical note about "Life in America in 1837", photos and illustrations from the time, and a fold-out map of the actual path that "The Trail of Tears" took across the US. Young readers who enjoy stories about the settling of the west will find this book a thought-provoking alternative

-Betty Winslow

Betty Winslow is a writer and school librarian from Bowling Green, Ohio.   Her writing has appeared in many places, among them FamilyFun, Christian Library Journal, Guideposts, Writer's Digest, and six anthologies (so far).