Dawn Land

Overview

About ten thousand years ago in the northeast, the Abenaki– People of the Dawn Land – created a thriving community in social and ecological balance with nature and with each other. One of the finest sons of the People is Young Hunter, who dedicates himself to becoming a pure hunter. But a shadow is crossing over this place, threatening his beloved homeland, and Young Hunter is called to its defense. The deep-seeing one of his village, Bear Talker, tells him that the change will be brought by beings of great power, with cold hearts and a terrible hunger, and Young Hunter has been chosen to fight them. "This young one will do things for the people," Bear Talker thought. "If he survives...if he survives." 
  
Not knowing what the threat is, Young Hunter embarks, with his faithful dogs, on a journey that will take him to new lands and test his resolve in unforeseen ways. Given a special weapon called the Long Thrower, he must learn the secret of its power by studying with the deep seer Medicine Plant. A woman apart, she is a fine example of the importance of women in Native society. 
 
More than an action-packed saga of a dangerous journey, Dawn Land is a dramatic illumination of the highly developed value system of these pre-contact native people. Its unforgettable story enriches the reader with a greater understanding of the lifeways of native peoples, lifeways that survive to this day because they are built on maintaining balance and harmony with nature.  
 

Reviews

Author Joseph Bruchac was selected as one of twenty three Academy of American Poets 2023 Poet Laureate Fellows.

“To be Indigenous is to be of the land. Authentic and reverent, Dawn Land is an Indigenous story that transports us not just beyond our imagination, but to the land itself. It's the story of us all.” —Anton Treuer, author of Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but Were Afraid to Ask and Where Wolves Don't Die

“Within this beautiful story are wonders and terrors equal to anything I’ve read. There are certainly thrills, but running through it is the wisdom, heart, and philosophy of a worldview intent on harmony, and it is a glorious thing. Intensely moving and inspiring.” — Jim Terry, author of Come Home, Indio

“...a compelling story, lyrically told.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

“An Outstanding work in its genre, Dawn Land should be popular with both general and young adult readers.” —Library Journal

“The words of Dawn Land flow with strength and intensity. ...I don’t think I’ve been so thorougly engrossed in a writer’s world since I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings some 20 years ago.” —BookPage

“...an exquisite book that succeeds both as a novel and as a retelling of old legends.” —San Francisco Review of Books

“Bruchac...draws on an imaginative mix of Native American tradition and historical facts to craft this lyrical first novel...” —Publishers Weekly

“To read Dawn Land is to enter another reality: mysterious, terrible, magically beautiful. A spell envelops the reader like a dream. Only a writer of Joseph Bruchac’s powers, his ancestral heritage and background, could create Dawn Land and the unforgettable characters and events that haunt a reader long after his remarkable story is told.” —Linda Lay Shuler, author of She who Remembers and Voice of the Eagle

“Mythically stunning. When you open Dawn Land you set foot on sacred ground. The Story occurs in ‘ceremonial time,’ and the people and places are at once alien, and so hauntingly familiar they beckon like a warm fire on a cold winter night. Joseph Bruchac sings to his readers. Listen carefully. His voice echoes the timeless teachings of a thousand tribal elders. Irresistible.” —Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear, authors of People of the Earth and People of the River

“Richly Imagined, original, and evocative, Joseph Bruchac’s Dawn Land is a valuable addition to the library of fictional re-creations of pre-contact Native American life.”
—Michael Dorris, author of A Yellow Raft in Blue Water and Morning Girl

“Joseph Bruchac’s Dawn Land is a story like a song, a lyrical mixing of the physical and the legendary.” —Roger Zelazny, author of Eye of Cat and two-time Hugo Award winner
 

Author Biography

A citizen of the Nulhegan Abenaki Nation, Joseph Bruchac has authored over 170 books in numerous genres and his poems, fiction, and essays have appeared in hundreds of publications from American Poetry Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Parabola, and National Geographic to Junior Scholastic and Highlights for Children. His ground-breaking book Keepers of the Earth (co-authored with Michael Caduto), which uses traditional Native American stories to teach about science, has sold over a million copies and been adopted in schools throughout the United States and Canada.