Morning Girl by Michael Dorris

In this simple story of a girl growing up within her community, I gained a different perspective on native americans than that usually represented in the American consciousness and textbooks. Morning Girl and Star Boy are two very different siblings who are adolescents in their community. Morning Girl learns to appreciate her brother and learns about herself over the course of the story.

In Morning Girl's culture, nature is greatly valued. At one point, Morning Girl wishes to know how she appears. As she explores her face by touch, she relates what she feels to nature. Her chin is pointy like a starfish, her cheeks are two hills. Even after a major storm, that I assume was a hurricane, the community views the destruction as a time of renewal and enjoys the gifts they have received from the storm-- new fronds already on the ground for use as roofing, coconuts easy to collect. Even the loss of cherished items is viewed as "what the storm had borrowed." (p. 68)

While the native american culture valued reverance for nature, a value quite different from the
exlorers, Dorris gave us the opportunity to see how these people were very much like everyone else. Children must learn the rules of adult behavior for their society. Families argue but love one another. Some marriages don't work.

I thought Morning Girl gave me a well rounded viewpoint of what one native american culture could have been like before Columbus and his men landed in "the New World."