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Joseph Maclean lives in the traditional territory of the Coast Salish (North Vancouver, British Colum-bia). He grew up in Unama'ki (Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia) until. at the age of ten, his family moved to the Kanien'keha:ka (Mohawk) Territory (Mon-treal).

Joseph is an historian by education, a storyteller by avocation and a social entrepreneur by trade. His mother, Virginia (nee Doyle) Maclean, a WWII army nurse, often spoke of her Irish grandmother, a country healer and herbalist, being adopted by the Mi'kmaq. The author remembers the stories of how his great-grandmother met Native medicine women on her 'gatherings' and how as she shared her 'old-country' knowledge she learned additional remedies from her new found friends. The author wishes he had written down some of the recipes that his mother used when he was growing up -strange smelling plasters that cured his childhood ailments.

Joseph took Native studies as part of an interdisciplinary program at the University of Montreal (Loyola College) where he graduated with an honours degree in history. Always interested in Aboriginal history and culture; the inspiration for this first book came from working on a literacy project with the urban Aboriginal community in Vancouver. It struck the author as odd that 'Mary had a little lamb', 'Twinkle, twinkle little star' and other, almost exclusively western rhymes and children's stories, predominated the literature and teaching aids used in the early child-hood education and development programs for Native kids. And so he wrote this first reader exploring some of the less well-known and illuminating facets of Aboriginal history and culture.

Joseph Maclean lives in the traditional territory of the Coast Salish (North Vancouver, British Colum-bia). He grew up in Unama'ki (Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia) until. at the age of ten, his family moved to the Kanien'keha:ka (Mohawk) Territory (Mon-treal). Joseph is an historian by education, a storyteller by avocation and a social entrepreneur by trade. His mother, Virginia (nee Doyle) Ma... More