Sing Down the Moon

Sing Down the Moon by Scott O’Dell is a great multicultural text; it is the story of different dangers the Navajo Indians faced as the United States was expanding. Through Bright Morning’s eyes, we receive a Navajo girl/woman’s perspective of the Spanish who captured young Indian girls to work for wealthy whites, and the forced migration of the Navajos to New Mexico when the U.S. acquired Arizona and New Mexico. The author has provided a piece on the historical context of the story at the end of the novel that is also worth discussing with the class.

Bright Morning was one of the girls kidnapped by the “slavers,” but she escaped, along with her best friend. Then, along with the rest of her village and thousands of other Navajos, she was forced to walk from her beloved Canyon de Chelly to Fort Sumner in New Mexico.

This novel could be taught in an interdisciplinary unit, and I would certainly use it as a multicultural text. I think seventh grade should be the cut off, however; this novel is probably ideal for students in fifth through seventh grades.