Sally Crum
3 books in the catalogue, published 1999 to 2009.
Sally Crum writes about the first peoples of the American Southwest, for adults and for children. Her nonfiction history covers Colorado's American Indians from the Ice Age forward, and her two adventure novels send young travelers across the Southwest in the 13th century. Western Reflections Publishing carries all three of these books, the earliest listed in our catalogue in 1999 and the latest in 2009.
About Sally Crum
Crum's own website says she has lived in western Colorado and the Four Corners area for over thirty years. The majority of her work has involved archaeological surveys for private contractors, the Navajo Nation and the U.S. Forest Service. That fieldwork shapes the books: People of the Red Earth, in the site's words, combines information from archaeological research with historical and ethnographic writing, and is enhanced by the author's personal knowledge of the area.
Outside readers have noticed. The site quotes Susan Collins, State Archaeologist of Colorado, who calls the book a treasure to be used and shared. In July 2015 C-SPAN's Local Content Vehicles visited Grand Junction, and Crum talked about the book there, including how archaeologists conduct their work and date their findings. Goodreads also lists a later children's book of poems, The Night the Stars Fell, about the 1833 Leonid meteor shower. We have no birth date or longer biography to offer.
Books
Race to the Moonrise
A children's novel set around 1200 A.D. about Long Legs and Little Basket, who walk from northern Mexico toward Chimney Rock in Colorado. Her site says it won the Gold Medal for Children's Fiction from Colorado Independent Publishers.
Race to the River
The sequel. One pair of travelers carries an injured father home to Casas Grandes, while three peace emissaries cross the desert from the California coast to reach the Colorado River. The two journeys are bound to meet.
People of the Red Earth
Crum's nonfiction history of Colorado's American Indians, first published in 1996 and revised here with a section on recent archaeology. It runs from mammoth hunters to the Ute, Cheyenne, Arapaho and other tribes.
What the books share
All three of our Crum books are about who lived in the Southwest and Colorado before the towns, and how we know it. The two novels invent their young travelers but send them to real places, among them Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, Chimney Rock and Casas Grandes, and the author's site says both were approved for use with Native American children by the Intertribal Cultural Committee of the Council for Indian Education. The history book works from the same ground with evidence rather than plot, and it follows peoples into the present day.
The subjects this author is catalogued under. Open Library record.
Good to know
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Writers like this one are how the list was built
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