This book is filled with problems that make it undesirable for our use. I'm not denying that North American Indians, as well as tribal people all over the world suffered under the advancement of colonialism. However, the clash of cultures and the injustices suffered are far from the unique victim hood claimed. This account doesn't get at the real issues inherent in culture clashes, nor does it make it more understandable for kids. 
 "What we know as Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, and North Caroline were all once Cherokee land." pg 9 This gives the impression that each state in it's entirety was included in Cherokee nation, whereas in fact, it was PARTS of Virginia, West Virginia, North & South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, not the entire states. This is especially glaring when there is a map below. It seems written to magnify the amount of land involved. 
 "Then the American Revolution was fought between the British and the American colonists. When the war was over, American settlers wanted the land owned by Cherokees" page 12. No mention that the Cherokee sided with the British in the Revolutionary War, nor that losing land is common when nations/ cultures lose a war. 
 "The Cherokee Nation wanted to live at peace with the United States" page 13. Okay, so we are telling it from the Cherokee perspective. But, no mention is made of the French & Indian War or other conflicts in which Indians took an aggressive role against Americans. Again, I am not saying their was no dispute over the land, but this title is only presenting the Indian side in a way framed "Cherokee as victims." 
 Pages 13-15 detail the creation of the Cherokee alphabet. "No other person in human history had ever created a new alphabet all alone" page 15. At reading this, I laughed out loud. First of all, the fact that the Cherokee and other Indian tribes DID NOT have written language shows part of the cultural inequity that was being fought out between the Americans and the Indians. Secondly, if the illustrations are to be believed, the Cherokee alphabet uses all sorts of western characters, so it wasn't "created... all alone." Third, we just finished reading "Out of Darkness: The Story of Louis Braille" about his challenges in creating an alphabet for the blind (an alphabet with characters entirely unique). Finally, Christian missionaries all over the world have written down alphabets for and translated literature of tribal people. Hawaii immediately comes to mind, and one can check Wycliffe Bible Translators or New Tribes Missions for more information. 
 Later sections of the book about struggles within the Cherokee community seem more concerned with accuracy, though still laden with victim language. 
 I'm disappointed in this book. What is accurate? What is not? My intuition is that in order to use this book, I would have to do a ton of my own research to balance out the perspective and I don't have time for that. I would love to see a work like Paul Robert Walker's "Remember the Alamo" that documents the numerous cultural tensions that lead to the Alamo battle and teases out legend from history by examining what we know and what we don't know about these significant events from our past. "Remember the Alamo" documents the lost battle and pays tribute to those lost in a far more satisfying presentation. In this vein, John Ross is a very heroic person from the Cherokee Nation, and I would like to know more about him and how he interacted with the cultural pressures of his time. 
 While this work closes with a feeble rebuke about broken promises of the white people and an equally feeble tribute to the Cherokee, I came away thinking that literacy, education and technology would have made a crucial difference in the Cherokee ability to document their history, fight the US government, push back the settlers and resist the injustice to which they were subjected.