The Ch'i-lin Purse: A Collection of Ancient Chinese Stories Retold byLinda Fang

This is a wonderful collection of stories, both for young children and for older readers. The book has 10 elegantly written short stories. Some are clever, some are funny, some show the value of kindness, but all have universal truths and wise lessons to be learned. The stories are hundreds of years old, but the way they are told keeps them fresh for a contemporary reader, and their messages keep them relevant. There is a pronunciation guide in the back of the book, as well as a sources section telling us a little bit more about each legend. A must for all lovers of stories with a moral.

First Strawberries by Joseph Bruchac

 This is the legend of how the first strawberries came into being, and it's kind of nice because it's a love story. I'm going to summarize it so if you don't want to know skip over.
 
One day a husband comes home from hunting to find his wife picking flowers instead of cooking. He angrily reprimands her for this and she indignantly walks off. The husband immediately feels sorry for getting so angry and tries to catch up to his wife to apologize but she's too fast for him so he asks the sun to slow her down. The sun shines itself on various berries but the wife is too angry to see them so the sun makes strawberries right on the ground so the wife would see them, and voila the first strawberries. The wife sees them and thinks to herself that it would be nice to share these with her husband so stops to pick some. The husband catches up to her and they live happily ever after.
 
It was a nice story. I enjoyed it.

Dreamkeeper (2003)

It's really hard to find a movie on native legends that isn't completely cheesy, but this one is pretty good. I was drawn into all of the legends and got to see present native peoples with the dignity I associate with their past. I like how they ended the movie with hope and the acting was pretty good.