Sequoyah: The Man Who Gave His People Writing by James Rumford, translated by Anna Sixkiller Huckaby.
Quite appropriately, this book about the man who invented the Cherokee written language is printed in two languages: English and Cherokee. The story itself is almost unbelievable. Sequoyah was fifty years old and knew no English and couldn’t read when he began to invent a written language for the Cherokee people in about 1809. People laughed at him and persecuted him for his strange ideas. Yet he persevered, and he is famous for having given his people a writing system and a written language.
I didn’t know that the giant Sequoia trees of California are probably named for Sequoyah. Rumford’s tale of the life of Sequoyah is framed as a story told by a father to his children about how the trees are like the man Sequoyah, even though Sequoyah was crippled and old and not a warrior at all.
“Now, who was this Sequoyah? my father asks.
He was a famous man, we say, because he invented writing for the Cherokee.
He was a brave man because he never gave up.
He was a leader because he showed his people how to survive—
How to stand tall and proud like these trees.”
The introductory blurb calls this book “a poem to celebrate literacy, a song of a people’s struggle to stand tall and proud.” And indeed, it is both narrative and poetic. I was moved, after reading this brief history of Sequoyah, to find other books and read more. A man who is famous for inventing an alphabet? That’s my kind of biography.
More books about Sequoyah:
Sequoyah: The Story of an American Indian by C. W. Campbell.
Sequoyah: Young Cherokee Guide (Childhood of Famous Americans) by Dorothea J. Snow.
Sequoyah and the Cherokee Alphabet by Robert Cwiklik.
Sequoyah: Leader of the Cherokees (Landmark Books, 65) by Alice Marriott.
Sequoyah by James Rumford is available for checkout from Meriadoc Homeschool Library. If you are interested in purchasing ($5.00) a curated list of favorite picture book biographies with over 300 picture books about all sorts of different people, email me at sherryDOTpray4youATgmailDOTcom.