Healer of the Water Monster

• Genre: Fiction; middle-grade fantasy/magical realism
• Originally Published: 2021
• Reading Level/Interest: Grades 4-7
• Structure/Length: Prologue, 33 numbered chapters, epilogue; approx. 368 pages; approx. 9 hours on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: Nathan, a young Navajo boy, thinks summer at his grandmother Nali’s home on the reservation will be dull and unexciting, but when a water monster from the Navajo creation story asks for his help, he realizes summer will be anything but ordinary.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Substance abuse; suicidal ideation

Brian Young, Author

• Bio: Author and filmmaker; raised in Arizona on the Navajo Reservation; studied film at Yale University; at Columbia University, earned MFA in Creative Writing; enrolled member of the Navajo Nation; awarded a Sundance Ford Foundation fellowship for film
• Awards: American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award for Best Middle Grade Book (2022)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Finding the Hero Within
• The Importance of Respecting Nature
• Family as a Source of Both Love and Pain

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Develop an understanding of the cultural and historical context regarding the Navajo Nation that impacts Healer of the Water Monster’s characters and setting.
• Study paired texts and other brief resources to make connections via the text’s themes of Nature, Family, and Heroism.