Meet Naiche is the first of three books in the National Museum of the American Indian's series, My World: Young Native Americans Today. Written in association with the Smithsonian Institution, the book chronicles a day in the life of a young Piscataway boy, Naiche Woosah Tayac. Author Gabrielle Tayac (Piscataway) shares Naiche's tribal history, his daily life experiences, and the Piscataway ancient ceremonies and customs. Vibrant photography by John Harrington (Siletz) documents Naiche, his family, and the Awakening of Mother Earth celebration. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Gr 3-6-A promising beginning to a new series. Tayac opens with a short introduction about her background and an overview of the Piscataway people. The rest of the narrative is told from the point of view of her cousin Naiche, who lives in rural Maryland. He shows how his life is similar to that of any other American child and at the same time incorporates his unique Native American heritage. (His mother is Apache, his father, Piscataway.) He describes a typical day at school, where he learns about fractions and photosynthesis, but afterward attends the Piscataway Nation's Awakening of Mother Earth celebration. The bulk of the book describes the ceremony, interlacing the details with family anecdotes. The white borders surrounding Harrington's full-color photographs add to the scrapbooklike feel of the volume. Historical paintings and reproductions provide additional information. Sidebars are not always placed logically throughout the text. An appendix, "A Piscataway Year," describes the annual cycle of festivals and provides a broader context for the Awakening of Mother Earth. Though this book is of limited use for reports, it is a great resource for teachers who want to give a human face to Native American studies, and the style is lively enough that kids may just want to read it on their own.-Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Maryland School for the Deaf, ColumbiaCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Gr. 5-10. Part of the new series My World: Young Native Americans Today, this large, handsome, full-color photo-essay leaves generic stereotypes behind and focuses on a contemporary Hopi teen, Mindy Secakuku, weaving her personal story together with the history and culture of her nation. The author is Mindy's aunt, who was born and raised on the Hopi reservation and works with the National Museum of the American Indian. After the introductory overview, she lets Mindy tell her own story. At times Mindy sounds like an adult talking about "her personal goals." Still, the first-person narrative and the lively photos bring readers close to Mindy and her people, past and present. Mindy goes to high school near Phoenix, Arizona, and several pages show her as a "regular American kid," working at the computer, chatting with friends. But Mindy says she's "a Hopi and Tewa kid first," and most of the book is about her traditional culture on the reservation, beginning with her young woman's rite of passage in the Corn Grinding Ceremony, and including much about the history, art, religion, dance, and ceremonies through the seasons. Also in the series is Gabrielle Tayac's Meet Naiche: A Native Boy from the Chesapeake Bay Area (2002). HazelRochman. From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.