When the Shadbush Blooms

(When the Shadbush Blooms cover illustration copyright 2007 by David Kanietakeron Fadden)

2008 Children's Choice Book Award Finalist
IRA/CBC Children's Choice
Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book
2008 Notable Children's Book in the Language Arts
CCBC Choices 2008

When the Shadbush Blooms presents a year in the life of a Lenape family. The Lenni Lenape are the people native to eastern Pennsylvania, northern Delaware, New Jersey, the Hudson Valley region of New York, parts of Maryland, and parts of Long Island and Manhattan Island. Their name has been variously translated to mean the real or true or original people.

Many Lenape lived along the great river which they called the Lenapewihituk (River of the Human Beings). When European colonists arrived, they named the river and bay the Delaware in honor of Lord de la Warre, the governor, and in time the Native people who lived by that river became known as the Delawares.

In addition to being hunters, gatherers, and fishers, the Lenape were expert farmers, whose agricultural practices had been developed for thousands of years before the arrival of the Europeans (who were known to the Lenape as the Shouwunnok or "salty people" because they had crossed the salt sea).

The Lenape are widely believed to be the original core people from whom the other Algonkian-speaking nations branched out. In acknowledgement of this belief and in honor of their wisdom and their reputation as peacemakers, the Lenape were known among other nations as the Grandfathers.

There are three main clans of the Lenape: the Munsee or wolf clan, the Unami or turtle clan, and the Unilachtigo or wild turkey clan. Within each of these clans were numerous smaller groups. The Lenape had no central government but formed a loose alliance of small, independent family bands.

Women were accorded equality and great respect among the Lenape, and elders in the society were both honored and heeded. Children were greatly loved and usually disciplined only by word or example. Property was held in common, and the Lenape were lauded by William Penn for their generosity and light hearts. They held the earth and all it contained in reverence and believed themselves responsible for the protection and care of all the Creator provided.

Early in the colonial period, many Lenape - depleted by previously unknown diseases and other ills brought to their land by the Europeans - began to move west to escape European aggression and to find a home where they could again be free. After a journey long in both distance and time, most of their people - known by their English name, the Delawares - settled in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Canada.

Some Lenape, however, the Homeland members, chose to remain behind when the others left. It is their descendants who are found here in Pennsylvania, and whose story is told in this book. It is the writers' belief that in today's world - beset by violence, greed, devastation of the environment, and other ills - we could all profit by learning more about the Grandfathers' values and way of life.