96 pages • 3 hours read
Brian YoungHealer of the Water Monster
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Introduction
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.
