To Walk the Sky: How Iroquois Steelworkers Helped Build Towering Cities

“details the history of the Mohawk men from eastern Canada’s Caughnawaga reserve who supported their families by constructing some of the longest and tallest bridges and buildings in Canada and America.”

To Walk the Sky is the second picture book written by Patricia Morris Buckley, the great-grandchild of one of the Mohawk “skywalkers” who died in the collapse of Canada’s Quebec Bridge. The book pays homage to the Native Americans who built that bridge and many others, as well as towering buildings throughout North America. It is an important addition to the recorded history of Native Americans in the modern world.

The nonfiction work details the history of the Mohawk men from eastern Canada’s Caughnawaga reserve who supported their families by constructing some of the longest and tallest bridges and buildings in Canada and America. The story imparts the skills of these hardworking Native Americans, who, despite first being hired for unskilled labor on bridge construction sites, “walked the narrow beams as if strolling down a sidewalk” and could “run on the beams as if they were giant tightropes.”

Buckley packs an impressive amount of historical facts into this 40-page book, which could serve as an abbreviated textbook for middle- or high-school classes.

However, the book lacks both plot and lyricism and is more like a nonfiction passage in a middle-school standardized test than a picture book for elementary school children.

“Commemorated,” “accomplishments,” “reputations,” “sentries,” “tragedy,” “generation,” “sculpted,” “contribution,” “dismantle”—these are just some of the words in the book that are more appropriate for sixth graders than for the 4-8-year-old age group the book claims to serve.

E. B. Lewis’s illustrations are engaging and impressionistic, exhibiting form over detail. The pages could be framed and exhibited as a collection. It is no surprise that Lewis has illustrated more than 75 books for children, including Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Illustrator winners. However, given that To Walk the Sky is supported by We Need Diverse Books (WNDB), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is “to create a world where every child can see themselves in the pages of a book,” it is disheartening that, except for the singular image of one woman, the persons in the book have only shadows for faces.

Buckley’s prose is followed by several pages detailing the histories of her family, the Quebec Bridge, and the Kahnawa:ke native people, the text of which is more detailed and captivating than the skywalking story itself. Of particular interest is a section that lists the famous buildings constructed by Native American skywalkers. The glossary at the end of the book is also a great idea; but it should contain far more than eight entries, given the number of words that are above the reading and comprehension level of the book’s intended audience.

To Walk the Sky would make a good accompaniment to middle-school curricula regarding Native American history and influence in the modern world, but don’t expect the average 4-8-year-old to be able to read and understand it on their own.