This morning (May 3, 2017) I learned about Run for your Life by Trevor Kew, due out from Lorimer on August 1 of this year. I did a series of tweets about it. I'm pasting them here (I don't know how to remove the gray background from 2-15).
1) Due out sometime this year is a book that's making me go oh-oh. Set in Canada, the story is abt a kid whose dad was a refugee from Iran.
2) The kid is a runner. Rather than help with a fundraiser for First Nations displaced by a fire, he'd rather train for a big race.
3) When he's wiped out, he gains what he needs to keep going by imagining he is being chased by bloodthirsty savage Indians w tomahawks.
4) Training session over, he's catching his breath at a park. Someone asks him if he's ok. That someone is... a First Nations teen.
5) The First Nations teen is named Jason. He asks Chris (the runner) if someone was chasing him.
6) Chris knew it was not ok to imagine being chased by blood thirsty savage Indians. Jason's question, then, is awkward.
7) Chris realizes Jason is one of the FN people who is displaced by a fire. Turns out, Jason is also a runner.
8) The two boys will race against each other, later. And guess what: Chris still imagines himself being chased by savage Indians.
9) I get where the author (Trevor Kew) is going with this story (RUN FOR YOUR LIFE), but did he imagine Native teens as readers of this bk?
10) There were huge fires in Canada recently. So many Native ppl in my networks were fearful for family in danger of the fires.
11) With that in mind, this story might seem relevant and timely to some but I have doubts. And questions.
12) What I shared here is from the "look inside" feature at Amazon. It is due out on August 1, 2017, from Lorimer.
13) When Chris introduces Jason to his friends, there is awkward silence as they look at him. Then, the Korean kid says "You're a real ---"
14) Chris steps in before Yongwon (the Korean kid) says "Indian", saying "hockey player" instead. That's when Jason tells them his nation.
15) If I get RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, I'll be back.
Established in 2006 by Dr. Debbie Reese of Nambé Pueblo, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books. Dr. Jean Mendoza joined AICL as a co-editor in 2016.
Hi Debbie,
ReplyDeleteI will be interested to see what you think about this one. I have the same oh oh that you do based on what you just shared. Particularly wondering why the mc's buddy would be so surprised to meet a real "indian"? Am assuming this is set in Canada where we do use First Nations BUT if these are students in Alberta and around Fort McMurray where the fires took place a lot of the schools have Blackfoot and Cree and Metis. Mine does...not as many as others. Anyhow...maybe I should read it, too.
Thanks for all you do to help us build meaningful collections!
Some time ago (but well after you posted this), I looked up those parts of the book where Chris first imagines the bloodthirsty Amerindians in Google Books, and if I remember right, he only imagines them because he cannot seem to get them out of his head (they are from a scene in a Western film, and he has had a nightmare about them). You didn't mention that aspect of Chris's imagined savage Amerindians, so I wonder if that background info was added to the book shortly before publication and after you posted this. Because it seems like some kind of half-hearted (at least) attempt to rectify the situation. (I haven't looked at the passage where Chris races against Jason, so I don't know if that was ever changed at all.)
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