If oral tradition could be thought of as a tree of the world with branches representing the stories of all its thousands of cultures, then Joseph Bruchac has called upon deep roots in that tree in his career as author, storyteller and musician. Joseph has drawn from his ancestral roots in the Abenaki culture for his life's inspiration (although he has also been influenced by his English and Slovakian heritage). His Abenaki roots have also inspired his many novels and retellings of Native American tales and poems. In addition, he is rooted to a place that has nurtured his family for several generations: his family's stories must still echo within the walls of his home in the Adirondack
mountains, the same home where he was raised by his maternal grandparents. These roots have given Joseph a special sensibility he passes on to children through his many books, to audiences through his performances of traditional and contemporary music, and to his community through his efforts to preserve Abenaki culture language and skills. In Native American tradition, his projects have been a family effort. Joseph's wife Carol and their two sons, James and Jesse, have collaborated on many of his books and projects including performing with him in the Dawnland Singers.
It wasn't until Joseph was in his teens he began to be interested in his Abenaki heritage. His family had talked little about his Native American roots when he was younger. Joseph explains that everybody in the county knew that his grandfather "was an Indian. It was taken for granted – but he would not talk about it because there was a lot of shame connected with being dark skinned, being a native." (p. 29)[9] When he began to meet other Native Americans in his teens Joseph became fascinated with the Indian languages as well as cultures and he became determined to devote a portion of his life to seeing that all cultures were valued and respected.
Having earned a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and a master's degree from Syracuse, Joseph and his wife Carol went to Africa to teach for three years. When they returned to his childhood home they threw themselves into the literary world by establishing the Greenfield Review Press and the Greenfield Review, a literary magazine that published multicultural poetry and stories.
During this time Joseph was collecting Iroquois legends to tell to his sons and in 1975 he published many of these in Turkey Brother and Other Tales. The collection was well received by critics and when Joseph began telling the stories from memory at book signings his career as a storyteller for young people was launched. Since that time he has published over seventy books. His titles for children include many Native American stories and poems from the oral tradition including Songs from the Earth on Turtle's Back, The First Strawberries, and How the Chipmunk Got His Stripes; an autobiography, Bowman's Store; works of contemporary fiction, The Heart of a Chief and Eagle Song; and historical fiction, Arrow Over the Door and The Winter People. He won a Horn Book Honor Award for The Boy who Lived with the Bears and his books appear consistently on the Notable Books in the Field of Social Studies list compiled by the National Council of Social Studies. He has received the Knickerbocker Award for Juvenile Literature from the State of New York, the David McCord Children's Literature citation for the body of his work, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writer's Circle of the Americas.
All of Joseph's many works pay homage to his Native American roots. In an interview, he spoke to author Ann Hauprich of how Natives and Non Natives alike need to create a sense of self. "Have pride in what you are and recognize that we as human beings make ourselves. Our possibilities are not limited by what our family was or by what other people say we are."[10] In his many books, his preservation activities and his performances, Joseph Bruchac and family would have made his grandfather proud.
