The Raccoon and the Bee Tree (Prairie Tale Series)

In southeastern South Dakota, wild animals begin to stir as day turns to dusk. A curious raccoon emerges from his bed and starts hunting for food. Tempted by sticky honey oozing from a bee's nest, the little raccoon finds trouble he did not bargain for. The Raccoon and the Bee Tree combines an old American Indian tale written down by Charles Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman with a traditional European fable. Written one hundred years ago, The Raccoon and the Bee Tree has a lesson for children that is still important and relevant in today's modern society.

Charles A. Eastman was a Wahpeton Dakota born in Minnesota in 1858. After working as a doctor on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, he started to write about his life and the stories he remembered. Eastman published many books containing traditional American Indian stories. Elaine Goodale Eastman was born in 1863 in Massachusetts, USA. She moved to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to teach when she was twenty-two years old. There she married Charles Eastman and later became his editor and co-writer.