The Girl Who Married the Moon
The Girl Who Married the Moon — Tales from Native North America is a delightful MG book about the time in a girl’s life when she becomes a woman. About her moontime. The book is told by Joseph Bruchac and Gayle Ross with wonderful ink illustrations by S.S. Burrus. Joseph Bruchac is a prolific children’s book author and of Abenaki heritage and Gayle Ross is a direct descendant of the Cherokee Principal Chief John Ross. 
The book is divided into four regions of the United States and each section has four stories. The stories are about empowered girls, capable girls, intelligent and clever and very brave girls and the challenges girls face growing into womanhood. The stories also show the respect for tradition.
The Northeast section has tales from the Penobscot, Seneca, Passamaquoddy, and Mohegan. My favorite from this section is the Passamaquoddy tale The Girl and the Chenoo. Little Listener has braggard brothers and while they hunt each day, she remains behind, caring for camp. A Chenoo comes to her camp ; he is a “great cannibal monster in the shape of a man” and reminded me somewhat of a Sasquatch. Little Listener invites the Chenoo in, feeds him, allows him to rest and convinces him that she and her brothers are his family. He hunts for them and then asks for her help to not be frightening to others. And she melts his icy heart with her kindness.
The Southeast section has tales from the Cherokee, Muskogee, Piankeshaw, and Caddo.
I most enjoyed the Cherokee tale Stonecoat. 
Stonecoat is a powerful cannibal with a skin of solid rock. But women in their moontime are more powerful, the power to create life is most evident then, and so women in their moontime line up along the path to camp, oldest to youngest. As Stonecoat passes each one, he becomes more and more defeated and the most powerful woman is the girl with her first moon. Stonecoat is defeated.
Santa Clara Pueblo, Cochiti Pueblo, Dine (Navajo) and Apache tales make up the Southwest section.
The Beauty Way — The Ceremony of White-Painted Woman tells how the Apache honor a girl’s entrance into womanhood through the Beauty Way Ceremony.
She spends four days in a sacred lodge and an elder woman, Spirit Mother, teaches her about womanhood. The family hosts feasts for all who attend the four days, and the Crown Dancers, the mountain spirits who dance to shield the people, dance in firelight to drums. It sounds like a truly beautiful ceremony.
The Northwest section has tales from the Lake Miowak, Cheyenne, Okanagan, and Alutiiq. My favorite is the Cheyenne tale Where the Girl Rescued HerBrother. This is the story, that I take to be true, about a Cheyenne girl who rescued her brother during what whites refer to as the Battle of Rosebud Creek. This battle occurred just days before Custer was defeated at Little Bighorn.
Buffalo Calf Road Woman is a member of the Society of Quilters, the very bravest of women. She watches the battle at Rosebud Creek from atop a hill and when her brother becomes surrounded by Crow scouts and his death is inevitable, she charges down the hill on her horse and swoops him up and carries him to safety. It is because of her heroic deed, that the Cheyenee refer to this battle as Where the Girl Rescued Her Brother. I love this story. I know how she feels about her brother and I admire her courage and adept skills.
The Girl Who Married the Moon was published by Bridgewater Books in 1994. I do want to point out that the authors cited as a source the book American Indian Myths and Legends, edited by Richard Edoes and Alfonso Ortiz and published by Pantheon Books in 1994. It is in this cited source that I found several tales of the moon and sun in adversarial relationships, including one in which the moon rapes his sister sun.
