| Guide Rating and Review | |
A Native American Detective Story
by Kelley G. Weitzel, with illustrations by Kelley G. Weitzel, Heather Shuke, and Rachelle Marker.
2000. University of Florida Press, Gainesville. ISBN 0-8130-1738-6 (paper: alkaline paper). 127 pages, plus 21 pages of references and a glossary; and an index.
An engaging book, The Timucua Indians is an exploration of Native American history and prehistory in Florida, geared for 7-12 year olds. The Timucua were a group of Native Americans who lived in Florida during the contact period time of the 15th and 16th century; they are now all gone. The information in this book is arranged in 14 chapters, each address the concepts of subsistence (how the Timucua grew and gathered food), kinship (what their family structure was like), language (including words and phrases to practice), clothing, settlement patterns (what their villages were like), housing (what their homes were like), medicines, diet, tool manufacture (what kind of tools they made and what they made them of), and social structure (how they made community decisions, what their religion was like).
As the student reads along, s/he is challenged by what the author calls "Detective Directives," puzzles, more or less, to engage the reader and allow him or her to pursue some of the ideas more fully. The text uses simple line drawings to illustrate the text, and a glossary and pronunciation key is a welcome addition.
Weitzel's writing is brisk and informative, but also personal and personable, drawing the reader in. A bibliography has been collected for both the student and adult to find out more about archaeology and the indigenous peoples of Florida. The final chapter is on archaeology, on how we know what we know.
The Timucua Indians is a sprightly, challenging, and yes, I do believe the proper word is engaging book which will be enjoyable for young readers interested in Florida history or in the field of archaeology itself. I devoutly hope that this is only the first in this "Young Readers Library" selection from the University of Florida Press.
The Timucua Indians Home page of the book, at Weitzel's home page.
Disclaimer: I am not a specialist in this area and so cannot attest to the accuracy of the information or the depth of scholarship in the books reviewed. I am simply a journalist and reporting on recent books I have found to be of interest to me and to the readers of this web site.
