Highly Recommended: AT THE MOUNTAIN'S BASE by Traci Sorell, illustrated by Weshoyot Alvitre

In February, 2018, Penguin announced it was launching a new imprint, Kokila, that would center "stories from the margins with books that add nuance and depth to the way children and young adults see the world and their place in it." 

On September 17 of this year (2019), Kokila will release At the Mountain's Base by Traci Sorell (she's a citizen of the Cherokee Nation). Illustrated by Weshoyot Alvitre (she's Tongva/Scots-Gaelic), it is an all-to-rare book: it is written and illustrated by Native people, and published by one of the Big Five publishers. Being published by a major publisher means a lot of visibility. The book will be sent to bloggers, copies will be given away at conferences, and review copies will be sent to the major review journals.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

On the opening pages, the words and art invite us to come closer and closer with each page turn. It starts with us looking at a mountain, and then a hickory tree, and then a cabin, and then, we look in the window of that cabin and see a person sitting by a wood stove. 

That person is a grandmother, weaving. Her grandchild watches her fingers, weaving the strands of fiber that frame the illustrations up to this point in the story. But, this grandma is worrying, as she weaves. The grandchild is not the only person with the grandmother. Other members of the family are there, too, singing. 

On the wall behind them is a photograph of a woman in uniform that tells us what the worry is over. The song they sing is about the person in that photograph. Turning the page, we see--from above--the cockpit of an airplane. Inside the cockpit is the woman in the photograph. She's a pilot, and as she flies her plane, she prays for peace, because of the people inside that cabin at the base of that mountain. 

If I were to count the words in this book, I think there would be less than 50, but they carry so much power, so much beauty, so much strength! The art is that way, too. The colors and arrangement convey a quiet strength. Together, they are breathtaking!

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The first paragraph of the author's note tells us that Sorell's poem is about a fictional Cherokee family but that Native women have served and continue to serve in wars, and that they receive strong support from their families. Note that Sorell (and I, in writing this paragraph) did not specify US wars. Sorell starts by saying that women have served in intertribal conflicts. Those pre-date the US. That's a seemingly small detail but it shifts that "center" from the US and US wars to Native people and the wars that our people have fought over time. 

The second paragraph tell us about a specific woman: Ola Mildred "Millie" Rexroat, who was an Oglala Lakota pilot in World War II. In 2009, she received the Congressional Medal of Honor, and in 2017 (a few months after her death), Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota renamed and dedicated a building in her honor. 

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Facing that author's note is the final illustration of the book. From behind, we see that pilot, walking up to the cabin at the mountains base. It is a stunning work of art. 

I highly recommend At the Mountain's Base by Traci Sorell and Weshoyot Alvitre. I hope you'll pre-order it. And thank you, Kokila, for bringing this book into the lives of Native and non-Native children. 

Virginia Mathews (Osage) had a hand in Margaret Wise Brown's THE RUNAWAY BUNNY

I am following up on my post, earlier today, about Virginia Mathews and Margaret Wise Brown. A brief recap: Mathews was an Osage librarian, and a leading advocate for Native peoples. Brown wrote two popular books, Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny. In my previous post, I wondered about how Brown could create stereotypical material, given her friendship with Mathews.

In his biography of Brown, Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon, Leonard Marcus wrote that the two women visited museums together, in Paris. Among them was a trip to the Musée de Cluny... (p. 243-244):

... where the author of The Runaway Bunny surveyed the famed Unicorn tapestries, the fifteenth-century allegorical hunting scenes that filled an entire gallery with a picture book writ large. On their way out of the Cluny, Margaret purchased a set of postcards of the tapestries. "Wouldn't it be interesting," she said to her companion, "to make up a new story to go along with the pictures?" [45] She wanted to reorder the scenes, she explained, in such a way that the unicorn might elude his captors. At a nearby stationer that Margaret knew, she bought a parchment album. Returning to her hotel, they began rearranging the cards.

In time they had their story, and after inscribing it on the album's leaves Margaret said that it "would certainly be interesting to have the album bound in red leather." 

The reason I'm honing in on those passages is that, according to Marcus, Virginia Mathews had a significant role in the creation of The Runaway Bunny. I wonder if I can find any books or articles that say more about Mathews and her role in the creation of that book?

Note: the passage above has "[45]" in it, which is a superscript in Marcus's book for a source note that reads "Virginia Mathews, 18 July 1984." It refers to an interview Marcus did of Mathews. Earlier in the notes section, there is a more complete reference to the interview: "Virginia Mathews, interview with author, Hamden, Conn., 18 July 1984."

I also wonder why, in the recent exhibits on children's literature at NYC and Minneapolis, Marcus makes no mention of the influence Mathews and her father had on Margaret Wise Brown.

Virginia Mathews and Margaret Wise Brown

Upon learning about Mac Barnett and Sarah Jacoby's new picture book biography of Margaret Wise Brown, I asked some questions about what should be included in a children's biography. The story and illustrations in two of Brown's books are stereotypical. They are Little Indian (illustrated by Richard Scarry) and David's Little Indian (illustrated by Remy Charlip).

My questions prompted me to take a look at Leonard Marcus's biography of her, Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened By the Moon. I wondered if there's information in it that might help me understand why she'd do such demeaning writing about Native people. Marcus's book was published in 1992 by Beacon Press.

I came across something that surprised me. Margaret Wise Brown and Virginia Mathews were friends.

First, some information about Mathews. She was Osage, and a significant leader in the American Library Association. In recognition of her work, the American Indian Library Association has a scholarship named after her. I received that scholarship when I was in library school. Here's a paragraph about her, from ALA News, on Feb 7, 2012:

In 1971, Virginia Mathews, Lotsee Patterson and Charles Townley formed a Task Force on American Indians within the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association. She was a member of the first OLOS Subcommittee on Library Service for American Indian People, which led to the founding of the American Indian Library Association in 1979. She was involved with the Library Project at the National Indian Education Association, which supported three demonstration library projects — Akwesasne Library and Cultural Center, the Rough Rock Demonstration School and the Standing Rock Tribal Library—and all three served as models for the early development of tribal libraries on reservations. She worked tirelessly with the National Council of Library and Information Services to create the first White House Pre-Conference on Indian Library Services in 1978 whose delegates attended the 1979 White House Conference on Libraries and Information Services. She was responsible for inclusion of Title IV for tribal libraries in the Library Services and Construction Act Reauthorization in 1984. This special status and funding for tribal libraries is retained in current Library Services and Technology Act legislation. She was the first American Indian to seek candidacy for the ALA presidency and was a proud member of the Osage Nation.

All of that is about her work in the 1970s and later. Twenty years earlier she was in Europe. On page 242 of Leonard Marcus's biography of Brown, he wrote: 

Margaret generally traveled alone, meeting friends at various points along her itinerary. Among those she had arranged to see in Paris was Virginia Mathews, an American in her twenties whom she had known since the war. Mathews until recently had managed Brentano's children's book department. She was already a great admirer of Margaret's work when they met, and was soon equally impressed by her generosity of spirit. [...] 

She [Margaret] enjoyed her talks with Mathews, taking a particular interest in her family history. (Mathews, in contrast, learned very little about Margaret's family). Virginia's mother had attended Margaret's Swiss boarding school, the Chateau Brillantmont. Her father, a full-blood Osage Indian, was the tribe's historian. In 1945 John Joseph Mathews published a book of Osage nature lore, Talking to the Moon, which Margaret had soon read. Its title alone might well have struck a responsive chord in the writer who later that year would awaken one morning to compose the text of Goodnight Moon. 

I find that interesting for several reasons.

First, some people say that knowing someone who is of a different racial or cultural background than you are can help you recognize stereotypes of those individuals race or culture. Second, some of us say that it is important to read #OwnVoices because that can help you avoid creating stereotypical content in your own writing. Margaret Wise Brown had a friendship with a Native person and read books by Native people--and yet, she created these two books: 

I'm going to see if I can find a copy of John Joseph Mathews's book, Talking to the Moon. Marcus suggests it influenced Brown to write Goodnight Moon. I'll be back!