The Legend of the Indian Paint Brush by Tomie dePaola

Book Genre: Fiction

Publishing Info: Paper Star, 35 pages

Awards or honors received: N/A

Summary: This story is about a small boy who couldn’t keep up with the rest of the boys. He was called Little Gopher. He had a gift of making toys from scraps of leather and pieces of wood. He would paint the toys with colors from the berries he found in the hills. When Little Gopher grew a little bit older a dream vision came to him. An old man told him he would paint great pictures of deed of warriors and the shaman. A maiden told him to find a white buckskin and someday he will paint a wonderful picture on it. The next day the boy began to make paint brushes from different animal hair. Then he gathered berries and flowers to create colors. He began to paint pictures of great deeds so the people would always remember. Then he had another dream that he needed to take the white buckskin and paint the setting sun. He paint the most beautiful picture and after that the people called him; “He-Who-Brought-the-Sunset-to-the-Earth”.

Personal rating and reason for rating: **** Great book to lead into a unit on Native Americans. Beautiful illustrations that look like watercolors your students would want to paint.

Reading level: 4.4

Interest level: K-5 (read aloud K-2)

Possible uses of the text: Social Studies/Art This story would be great around Thanksgiving as a lead in to teach about Native American culture. Have each student bring in a brown grocery bag. Cut them into vests and turn them inside-out so they are blank. Introduce Native American symbols. Have students paint symbols on their vests that represent who they are and their likes and dislikes. Introduce new vocabulary words. Discuss what a legend is. Have students make up their own legends or work with partners. Create a Native American name for each student. Students could also create a story using only symbols and orally tell the story as they point to each symbol.

Potential Problems or Difficulties: none