The Cover for Eric Gansworth's GIVE ME SOME TRUTH

If you're a regular reader of AICL, you know I think Eric Gansworth's If I Ever Get Out of Here is outstanding. I recommend it all the time when I work with teachers and librarians.

Today, Nerdy Book Club was the host for the cover reveal for his next book, Give Me Some Truth, which will be out in 2018.

Here's some of what he said:

[W]hen I’m getting ready to write a new novel, I look at my existing cast of characters, and develop a new one by first identifying which other characters they’re related to. I ask the new character, “Now whose kid are you?”

As a Native person, I smiled as I read "whose kid are you" and I wondered who would be at the center of Give Me Some Truth! Who, I wondered, would take me back into a Native community that feels very real to me.

Gansworth doesn't have to sit there at his computer and think "how would a Native kid" think or feel or speak. He's writing from a lived experience. His writing resonates with me and so many Native people who have read and shared If I Ever Get Out of Here.

Head over to Nerdy Book Club and see what else Gansworth said, and keep an eye out for Give Me Some Truth. 

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Back to add Gansworth's bio:

Eric Gansworth (Sˑha-weñ na-saeˀ) is Lowery Writer-in-Residence and Professor of English at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY and was recently NEH Distinguished Visiting Professor at Colgate University. An enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation, Eric grew up on the Tuscarora Indian Nation, just outside Niagara Falls, NY. His debut novel for young readers, If I Ever Get Out of Here, was a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults pick and an American Indian Library Association Young Adult Honor selection, and he is the author of numerous acclaimed books for adults. Eric is also a visual artist, generally incorporating paintings as integral elements into his written work. His work has been widely shown and anthologized and has appeared in IROQUOIS ART: POWER AND HISTORY, THE KENYON REVIEW, and SHENANDOAH, among other places, and he was recently selected for inclusion in LIT CITY, a Just Buffalo Literary Center public arts project celebrating Buffalo’s literary legacy. Please visit his website at www.ericgansworth.com.    

Twitter Conversations about Scholastic's THE ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE

On September 22, 2017, a parent in Canada tagged me on a tweet about a book in his child's kindergarten classroom. He asked "What are kids learning about Canadian history? He shared four images from inside a book:

The pages are from The Royal Canadian Mounted Police by Marc Tetro, first published in 1994 by Scholastic Canada, for kids 5-8 years old. The tweet generated a fair bit of interest.

When I retweeted it, I tagged Scholastic:

Earlier today (Sep 25), Scholastic Canada replied:

I don't think there are any mechanisms by which a teacher or librarian would know that Scholastic stopped publishing this book because of the issues with its content. Clearly, it is still in at least one classroom in Canada.

I looked in WorldCat to see how many libraries have it. Given the issues in it, it shouldn't be in a public or school library. It does have use, however, in a university library. Unfortunately, it is in several public and school district libraries. If you've got it in your library, deselect it.

Not Recommended: SUSANNA MOODIE: ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH, A GRAPHIC NOVEL by Carol Shields and Patrick Crowe

Today, AICL is launching a new feature. I'm calling it Reviewed On Twitter and it will have its own label. Sometimes, I tweet that I got a book. If I have something more to say as I look it over, I send a second tweet, and a third, and so on. I end up with something akin to a review, except that it is in a series of tweets. Too often, I never get a review written and posted. That means that anyone who reads AICL but doesn't follow me on Twitter, doesn't see what I said about the book. I don't know if this new feature is going to work out or not, but, we'll see.

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Not Recommended

On September 17, 2017, CBC News ran a news item by Angela Sterritt. In 'A punch in the gut': Mother slams B.C. high school exercise connecting Indigenous women to 'squaw', Steritt wrote about a worksheet from a guide for a graphic novel being taught in her daughter's classroom. The graphic novel is Susanna Moodie: Roughing it in the Bush. Below are my tweets, as I read through it. I started on September 21. Published by Second Story Press in 2016, it is not recommended. 

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In today's mail; not looking forward to rdg ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH.

Page 2. Nothing in the text says anything about Thanksgiving. Why is it there?

Doesn't that look like an American Thanksgiving scene? Set in 1810, this is supposedly a story about going to Canada.

In Ch 1, Susanna meets her man, gets married; in ch 2 they set off for Canada. On Aug 30, 1832, they approach "The New World."

In ch 3, her husband, John, is out hunting. He comes home, sees Indians, aims his rifle at them; Susanna says she's ok.

The Indians (Chief Peter Nogan, his wife, their son) are teachng her their language. They name her, Nonocosoqui. It means Little Bird.

Susanna can draw. She draws a bird. The chief's wife says "your squaw is a much clever woman."

Susanna draws more, there's talk of trading. She gives them pieces of her fancy mirror (it mostly shattered on its way to their cabin).

I gotta say: stories that have Indians staring into mirrors, marveling, enable a "primitive" image. Water surfaces reflect image, too!

Oh... they give her a gift... she looks in a mirror shard.... it is a bone choker (some of my Native friends will get a kick out of that).

A few days later a Black man gives her a cow. He tells her he heard she's a writer. He tells her "this is no country for writing." Damn.

That "no country for writing" is another problem. It suggests Native ppls were primitive and didn't write.

The Black man's name is Mollineux. He knows abt writing (Shakespeare, specifically) because his master on VA plantation let him use library.

I should note that Susanna and John are Elitist Good White People. They don't like lower class men, like the ones in ch 4...

Ch 4 is about a "logging bee." Lot of working men come to work for Susanna and John. The morning they are due to arrive, Susanna's...

... maid ran away. Susanna doesn't know how to cook, but have no choice. The workers give her a hard time.

An American neighbor goes over to Susanna's. But, they're squatters! LOL. Susanna dissing on Americans. She even says that they...

... ""borrow" the land on which are farm now stood!" I guess Susanna and John got their land... legally?! Again:

The American squatter woman gives Susanna heck abt not sitting down with the workers. "You invite the Indians" but not "your helps."

Susanna wants to avoid "Speechifying on Yankee democracy" so changes subject to Mollineux. Squatter woman says he used to work for her...

... and he had "good conduct" but she "could never abide him for being black." Susanna says Mollineux is "same flesh and blood" as...

... squatter woman's "helps" and asks if he sat at their table. "Mercy me, my helps would leave if I put such an affront to them."

I should have noted when I started this thread, that the teacher's guide for ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH is why I ordered this book.

I did a long thread on the guide a couple of days ago.

1. I ordered a copy of ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH (graphic novel adaptation of the 1852 book) in this news item:

2. Question for @_secondstory -- why did you publish ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH as a graphic novel? I'm flipping thru 1852 bk and.. 

3. I see "squaw" a lot. Here's one passage: "a very large, fat, ugly squaw" is the first example.

4. In the original, "squaw" appears 39 times. How many times is it in the graphic novel? Course, even once is not ok.

5. Hmmmm... I searched the original for the word "darkie" that is definitely in the graphic novel, but it isn't in the original.

6. The original has the n word but the author pushes back on racist ideas. See?

7. Is that passage in the graphic novel... with "darkie" used instead?

8. Teacher's guide for bk is here: [It was removed for review.] See disclaimer? Why say "not politically correct" instead of racist? 

9. And, the person who wrote "of that time" is clearly living under a rock. Those prejudices and racist language are still here, TODAY. 

10. This guide is clearly written with White students/teachers in mind.

11. Did its author and publisher not realize Native and Black kids are part of today's society? First suggested activity is to imagine... 

12. ... life as a "pioneer." It is f'ed up to ask a Native child to imagine what it was like to be a "pioneer." 

13. The guide asks students for good definition of pioneer. How about "a biased word for someone who invaded Native lands." 

14. Here's another question from the guide. I don't see a question asking students how an Indigenous person felt...

15. The next question asks if relationships between pioneers and indigenous ppl improved. Guessing the answer is supposed to be yes.

16. Next activity: build a model of a pioneer village. That kind of thing centers Whiteness. Teachers: don't do this!

17. The third activity is about "politically incorrect" language:

18. Lot going wrong in this activity. In this true/false statement about words that "everyone" used? "Everyone" means White people. 

19. And here's the activity that brought attention to this messed up book and teacher's guide for it. Guide tries to say "don't use... 

20... certain words today" but then uses them in the activity like they're facts kids must learn. 

Where was I? Oh, yeah, the squatter woman and the not squatter woman trying to out-do each other with their imagined superiority.

Well, damn. When I was looking at the guide the other day, I saw that ch 6 is about a "shivaree" but didn't know what that was. I do now.

By ch 6, Mollineux has married an Irish girl. It is nighttime, men have fiddles, drums, masks. They go to his house: "Come on Darkie!"

One calls "string him up". They pour tar on him, feathers... When I first heard of this book, I asked WHY it was published.

It seems to me that the publisher and writers of the graphic novel & guide had NO IDEA that Native or Black kids would be asked to read it.

The graphic novel, published in 2016, has an Intro by Margaret Atwood. Her recent Emmy probably makes the bk more saleable. But...

But I can't see her name anymore and not remember her involvement in the Joseph Boyden messes.

I'll stop for now with this quick look at ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH. If it was assigned to my child, I'd raise hell for sure.

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When I quit last night, I had finished Ch 6, "Shivaree." I didn't share any pain-inducing images from those pages. I'm still aghast at them.

The bk is marked as being for kids in sixth grade and on up. Those "Shivaree" pages are brutal.

Ch 7 is called "John Managhan." John goes to Susanna's house, asking for work. He's hurt but Susanna's new servant won't help him.

He starts to work for Susanna. Kind of heroic. Even tells Susanna's husband how to deliver their 2nd baby when the midwife can't get there.

That's because he's a Roman Catholic. An inset box tells us that enmities between religions ran high "in those days." Not today, I guess?!

Life is getting harder for Susanna. Milk, bread, and potatoes are sometimes all they have to eat. But wait!

Remember the Indian Chief from the start of the book? He comes by from time to time and gives them fish.

Susanna gives most of the food to her family. Husband notices, tells her she has to eat more because he needs her help in the fields.

Susanna cries. She is "reduced to field-labour" but understands why. She steps up but they don't have skills, really, to do this work.

Life gets harder and harder. There's a page where she's grimacing as she skins squirrels for their meals. She's also upset because...

... her sister, who had visited (briefly) in ch 5, has written a book that has "made this wretched wilderness into a fool's paradise."

Susanna's husband tells her to write, again, as she had before they left England. Write the truth of their lives, he says.

Susanna doesn't want to do that. Everyone in England would think of her, living in a log hut, consorting with vulgar ppl & Americans.

But, after a while, she does (write). War breaks out. John has to leave. Oh... here's Indians again as Indian women show her how to fish.

I've looked thru and thru the book. No mention of what tribal nation Susanna was learning words from, or learning fishing techniques...

The thread this tweet is part of is about the graphic novel, SUSANNA MOODIE: ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH that was (is?) being taught in Canada.

It is based on a book with that same title, written by Moodie, published in 1852. In the original, Moodie used "Indian" 118 times.

You can see the original, here: I don't plan to do any analysis of the 1852 one compared to the 2015 one.

Mostly, I just wonder why Second Story thought it was a good idea to make this graphic novel adaptation, for young ppl of today.

I don't recall seeing a disclaimer like this one, inside ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH. See that past tense, "were", in there? (Because text in photo is small, I am inserting it here: "Common prejudices in the nineteenth century resulting from antagonisms between Protestants and Catholics, or racism perpetuated by white Europeans against Blacks and Aboriginals, were reflected in the everyday language people used to describe themselves and each other. Today it is unacceptable to use words such as Indian, squaw, darkie, Negro,Yankee, or Papist.")

There's something like that disclaimer in the teaching guide for the bk, too. That guide got pulled. Will the book get pulled, too?

My guess is, no. It was (is?) being used in classrooms in Canada, which means it was bought in quantities. Just for one class? More?

Not Recommended: I AM SACAGAWEA by Brad Meltzer

Today, AICL is launching a new feature. I'm calling it Reviewed On Twitter and it will have its own label. Sometimes, I tweet that I got a book. If I have something more to say as I look it over, I send a second tweet, and a third, and so on. I end up with something akin to a review, except that it is in a series of tweets. Too often, I never get a review written and posted. That means that anyone who reads AICL but doesn't follow me on Twitter, doesn't see what I said about the book. I don't know if this new feature is going to work out or not, but, we'll see.

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This morning (Sep 24, 2017), I started reading Brad Meltzer's I Am Sacagawea and sharing my thoughts, on Twitter, as I read. I am pasting the text of those tweets, here.

1. Another of my "WHY?" threads. This one is about a new picture book about Sacagawea.

6:50 AM - 24 Sep 2017

2. Ppl in kidlit know abt the "I am ___" series by Brad Meltzer. It is published by Dial/Penguin. "We can all be heroes!" is a tagline.

3. Bks in the "I am" series are abt political figures, but also entertainment, sports, activists, etc.

4. I'm looking at resources about Sacagawea. Wonder if Meltzer knows she's controversial? http://lemhi-shoshone.com/svingen.html 

5. When I start reading I AM SACAGAWEA, will I find anything about that controversial POV in Meltzer's book? @penguinusa

6. In the back of the bk, the author and illustrator thank Carolyn Gilman. She wrote a book called Lewis and Clark: Across the Divide.

7. Gilman's book is available online: I'll look at that, but the bk I am going to rely on is...

8. ... not that one! ANYTIME I see anything abt Lewis and Clark, I remember a mtg I was in with Native historians, several years ago.

9. It was in the years preceding all the big rah-rah events to mark the "200th anniversary" of the expedition. Some planners wanted...

10. ... ppl of the tribal nations along the expedition to participate in re-enactments. Paraphrasing the response; it was something like...

11. 'Why would we wanna do THAT?!' -- In other words, 'no, we will not perform in your story.'

12. Some quick thoughts, now, on Meltzer's I AM SACAJAWEA. First page: "I am Sacagawea." Oh-oh. Did she, in fact, say those words?

13. Does Meltzer have evidence that she said "I am Sacagawea." in the files he put together to do this book? Or... did he make that up?

14. Next page... another 'oh-oh' from me. "What do people expect of you?" she says. I am pretty sure she didn't say that. What we've got...

15. ... is a white guy creating the speech of a Native woman who lived over 200 years ago. He's leaping over differences in...

16. ... identity and language and time and culture. What could go wrong?

17. Next lines are about what people expect of you (reader) and what people expected, in that time, of Sacagawea.

18. Meltzer's Sacagawea has an answer: "In fact, they didn't expect much at all." You should be wondering WHO didn't expect much of her.

19. Meltzer's question, in short, centers Whiteness. He doesn't name it. What he means is that WHITE people didn't expect much of her.

20. Yeah... what can go wrong with Invented Dialog that leaps across time, language, identity... easy to see, so far, right?

21. Oh, Penguin... do we need another messed up book about Sacagawea? WorldCat says there's 268 books (for kids) about her. Yours makes 269.

22. Meltzer's I AM SACAGAWEA is doing exactly what ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH did: telling (white) rds that racism is a thing-of-the-past.

23. Lines like "That's how things were back then." are lies you're telling to kids. Things are like that RIGHT NOW.

24. Hmm. Meltzer has Sacagawea quoting "Chief Meninock of the Yakama Tribe" saying "We can only be what we give ourselves power to be."

25. Did Meninock say that? #Librarians, help me find it! So far, I've found it in one bk--but I need something more substantive.

26. In the final pages, Meltzer's Sacagawea tells readers: "Make your own path. Shatter expectations." Again, did she say those words?!

27. Next, she says "That's what I've always done." Oops, Meltzer. Didn't you tell us she was considered property that could be given away?

28. Based on what I've shared in this tweet thread, you are right if you're thinking that I will not recommend Meltzer's I AM SACAGAWEA.

29. Not Recommended: Brad Meltzer's I AM SACAGAWEA, published in 2017 by Dial/Penguin. Librarians: save your funds.