D Is for Drum

Native history, culture featured in bookThe children's book, written by Debbie and Michael Shoulders and illustrated by noted Navajo artist Irving Toddy, is part of Sleeping Bear Press' award-winning alphabet book series. Released earlier this year, the book is particularly appropriate for local young readers, ages four to 10.

"D is for Drum" features each letter of the alphabet with an accompanying illustration by Toddy and two separate levels of text a shorter and simpler rhyming text for beginning readers and a longer, more explanatory text for upper elementary school-aged children. The book offers readers a glimpse into the traditional history and culture of many contemporary tribes in the United States and Canada--sometimes through shared cultural items like bison, corn, drums, flutes, horses, medicine pouches, rattles, and sometimes through tribe-specific topics like the game of lacrosse from the Choctaws, the Chinook potlatch, Inuit umiak boats, Yup'ik masks, and the Xai Xais tribe of British Columbia.