Turtle Island: Tales of the Algonquian Nations

The Algonquins are a great family of tribes who were widely spread across the North Central, Northeastern, and Middle Atlantic United States and Canada. Among them are the Lenapé, the Blackfoot, the Cree, the Micmac, the Ojibway, the Pequot, and the Wampanoag. A number of the tribes vanished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their stories with them, for not until the late nineteenth century were many tales written down. In Turtle Island, Jane Curry retells twenty-seven such tales from a selection of tribes across the ancient Algonquian homelands.

Here are stories of shapechangers, of magic and mystery, of heroes and tricksters, of how the world was made, and of why crows are black and beavers have broad tails. Animals and humans are of equal importance, sharing the world around them, sometimes as friends, sometimes as opponents.

Skillfully retold by a master storyteller and with evocative illustrations that reflect the customs and culture of the Algonquins, this is a special book for all who, like the Algonquins, enjoy a good story.