Allie Jane Bruce's review of LAURA INGALLS IS RUINING MY LIFE

Eds. note: AICL is pleased to publish Allie Jane Bruce's review of Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life, by Shelley Tougas. It was published in 2017 by Roaring Book Press (Macmillan). To read the introduction to this review, go to Allie's post at Reading While White.

Here's a description of the book (from the Macmillan website):

A life on the prairie is not all its cracked up to be for one girl whose mom takes her love of the Little House series just a bit too far.

Charlotte’s mom has just moved the family across the country to live in Walnut Grove, “childhood home of pioneer author Laura Ingalls Wilder.” Mom’s idea is that the spirit of Laura Ingalls will help her write a bestselling book. But Charlotte knows better: Walnut Grove is just another town where Mom can avoid responsibility. And this place is worse than everywhere else the family has lived—it’s freezing in the winter, it’s small with nothing to do, and the people talk about Laura Ingalls all the time. Charlotte’s convinced her family will not be able to make a life on the prairie—until the spirit of Laura Ingalls starts getting to her, too.

****

Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life, by Shelley Tougas.  

Roaring Brook Press.  

Reviewed by Allie Jane Bruce.

NB - I read, and used page numbers from, a galley of this book.

At the outset of Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life, twelve-year-old Charlotte makes it clear that she finds her mom’s obsession with Laura Ingalls irritating. Any time Mom or Rose (Charlotte’s younger sister) reference the Little House books or Laura Ingalls, Charlotte’s reaction is somewhere in the ballpark of “Seriously?” or “Ugh.” On page 8, Charlotte thinks:

Realistically, I was stuck with Laura for a year. I had to deal with her the way you deal with an upset stomach. You wait it out. Eventually you puke and feel better. 

On their move from Lexington, Kentucky to Walnut Grove, Minnesota, Mom decides they must stop and eat at a diner they see, called "Prairie Diner". When Mom starts to engage a waitress on the subject, Charlotte thinks (p. 9): 

I needed to shut this down before Mom launched her crazy spirit-of-Laura explanation. 

It is important to note, however, that Charlotte’s negative reactions have nothing to do with any inkling that the books, or Laura herself, are racist or problematic. Charlotte is irritated because she is a snarky, often pessimistic character, and the idea of Laura’s spirit calling out to Mom’s creative soul rubs her the wrong way.

On page 34, in her new classroom, Charlotte notices (p. 34): 

There were twenty-four students in our new class, including Julia [their landlady’s granddaughter], Freddy [her twin brother], and me. Six were Asian. Julia was the only Hispanic student, as far as I could tell. Everyone else was white. 

I wondered, upon reading this, whether all those White kids were actually White, or whether Charlotte might be misidentifying someone; many people present, or pass for, White but in fact identify as Native, Latinx, or multiracial. I wondered more about this on page 36, as the kids are being given an assignment. Mrs. Newman (her teacher) says:

“You will write about how Laura Ingalls and her story have influenced our community and affected your life. [...] You don’t have to be a fan. I know there are students who haven’t read the books, which saddens me greatly, but if you live here, there’s no getting around Laura’s influence. Even if you haven’t read the books, which truly saddens me, you are aware of how she’s shaped our town, and if you’re not aware, that is heartbreaking.” 

I tried to imagine myself as a Native kid reading this passage, or to take it a step further, as a White-presenting Native kid in Charlotte’s class. How would this talk about not reading the books, and not being aware of how Laura Ingalls shaped their town, as “saddening” and “heartbreaking” land with me? Reading it with this mindset, it made me angry. Native people were subject to genocide and forced relocation because of the invasion of people like Laura Ingalls; but what’s really heartbreaking is if someone hasn’t read or appreciated her books?

Charlotte finds the assignment annoying, but not problematic. She writes an essay titled “Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life” and describes how angry she is that her flighty mother moved them to the town of Walnut Grove to chase Laura’s creative energy.

Soon after, Charlotte gets sick and has to stay home from school for several days. Mom reads to her from the Little House books, which Charlotte likes. Charlotte describes how much Ma hates Indians, the first reference thus far to any racism or problematic content in the Little House books (p. 46):

And Ma, who is the sweetest character in the book, hates Indians, and I mean hates hates hates them. Maybe it was because the Ingalls built their cabin on Indian land, and the Indians weren’t too happy about it. In the end, both the Indians and the Ingalls pack up their stuff and move. The Indians are forced to leave their hunting grounds, and the Ingalls end up on the banks of Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, because all Pa wants to do is move. 

Charlotte offers all of this without editorializing or offering her opinion on Ma’s opinions, which I found strange, since Charlotte offers her opinion on everything, especially if she finds it annoying. Are we to conclude that Charlotte doesn’t find Ma’s bigotry annoying? At best, she is dispassionate about it.

On page 52, Charlotte’s mom changes her mind about her writing project. Where she’d previously intended to write an historical fiction about an orphan girl moving to the prairie, she now wants to write about (p. 52)

...twins who sneak aboard this space shuttle that’s going to colonize Mars... Mom says it’s the same story because it’s about exploration and pioneers. So we’re still here for Laura. She still needs Laura’s spirit.

This is interesting, because I’ve seen outer space exploration and aliens used as metaphors for colonialism and invasion before, in books like The Knife of Never Letting Go, Landscape With Invisible Hand, and The True Meaning of Smekday. I have mixed feelings about them. I appreciate the emphasis on interrogating invaders; and, I think it’s problematic to draw a parallel between aliens and Native humans, or to cast Native and non-Native people as equal parties in any story about colonization. I think Mom’s idea for a Mars book, which rests on an analogy in which White pioneers are to humans as Native people are to literal Martians, is deeply problematic. Over the course of Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life, Charlotte and others question whether the Mars book is a good idea, but not for the reasons I state above.

Charlotte reads an essay on Manifest Destiny, and soon after that, on the Transcontinental Railroad. About the Manifest Destiny essay, Charlotte thinks (p. 79-80):

The essay, “Manifest Destiny and America’s Expansion,” was long and boring. If you’ve heard people say something is as boring as watching paint dry, well, the Manifest Destiny essay would bore the paint. [...]  The essay went like this: After colonists won independence from England, American leaders thought it was destiny for our country to grow. If ordinary Americans could own land, not just rich people, then they would be committed to making the country strong and the best in the word. So the government bought land around Louisiana from France and fought with Mexico to get even more land. And pretty soon the country stretched “from sea to shining sea,” just like the song “America the Beautiful” said.

Charlotte’s only problem with the essay is that she found it boring.

On page 82, Charlotte discusses the Transcontinental Railroad with Rose (her younger sister) and we get our first inkling that she’s starting to see some of these problems. After describing the hardships in The Long Winter, Rose says (p. 93-94):

“Finally spring came and the trains arrived with supplies. So many pioneers would’ve died without trains bringing stuff from the East. Trains were lifesavers.” 

I flopped on my bed. “Tell that to Chinese workers. Tell that to the buffalo.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“The railroad company hired workers from China and barely paid them and had them do all the dangerous work, like blowing up tunnels. Lots of them died. When the trains were up and running, men would sit in train cars and shoot buffalo for fun. They didn’t even eat the meat. The buffalo just rotted and pretty soon buffalo became almost extinct.”

I like this exchange, although I wonder why we haven’t heard more of Charlotte’s inner thoughts about this--she seems to be reevaluating her initial take on Manifest Destiny.

Next, Charlotte learns about the U.S.-Dakota War (although the book doesn’t call it this). She reads about the “Dakota Sioux Conflict”.  Her teacher says (p. 114-115):

“I want you to start with the Dakota Sioux Conflict because it was essentially a war that happened right here in southwestern Minnesota. The whole thing was overshadowed by the Civil War, so most people know very little about it. You’ll make some connections between it and the Ingalls family.” 

“Like Ma hating Indians?” 

“In a way,” she said. “No doubt she’d heard about Indians killing settlers in southwestern Minnesota, and she was afraid.” 

“It’s not like she could call 9-1-1.” 

“Indians were afraid of the settlers, too. The government broke treaty after treaty. They didn’t give the Indians supplies that were promised, and the Indians were afraid they’d starve that winter.”

Having learned that one outcome of the U.S.-Dakota war was the largest mass execution in U.S. history, I am troubled by this “fair and balanced” account.

A few pages later, Mrs. Newman assigns Charlotte an essay on the Trail of Tears (p. 126):

She handed me an article. I glanced at the title—something about Native Americans and a Trail of Tears. “Here’s one more thing I want you to read. You can take your time, but I do want to discuss it.” 

On page 132, Charlotte and Julia (their landlady’s granddaughter) have a conversation in which they talk about how “perfect” Pa Ingalls was as a dad (conveniently omitting his blackface performance). Julia also says, describing what she wrote about in her award-winning essay on Laura Ingalls (p. 132):

“The Asians here are Hmong, which is like Vietnamese, but not exactly. Tons of them came to Minnesota after the war in Vietnam.” 

“Seems kind of random.” 

“It’s like a new group of settlers came to the prairie.” 

I cringe at several things here--casually describing Hmong people as “like Vietnamese, but not exactly” (how would that land with a Hmong child reading it?), “random” (in the large picture, Hmong people living in Walnut Grove isn’t any more “random” than Charlotte, or any White people, living in Walnut Grove, but this casts them as “other” and somehow different). As for “a new group of settlers came to the prairie” -- to equate Westward invasion and Manifest Destiny with the experiences of immigrants of color living in a White-dominated society is simply inaccurate, and troubling, in that it ignores the power dynamic Hmong people face and erases the fact that White people invaded Native lands (if White people invading the West were “immigrants” the way that Hmong people are immigrants in this context, Native people would have no legitimate grievances).

There’s an argument, of course, that Julia is twelve years old and doesn’t understand these dynamics; I do not, however, get the sense that Tougas recognizes the problems with what Julia says (at least, she does not recognize them in the text) or is presenting this conversation as a teachable moment, as she never counters Julia’s ideas. On the contrary, I get a strong feeling that we as readers are supposed to be learning and taking in what Julia says here.

In this same conversation, one of the more interesting things in the book happens. Julia describes another classmate, Lanie, whose essay was passed over for an award (p. 134):

“She [Lanie] wrote that we should have a museum for Native Americans because they lived around here first, and they had these battles with settlers.  She said the early farmers shouldn't be called settlers because the land was already settled. They were more like invaders.’ Julia leaned forward and whispered, ‘My grandma heard Mrs. Newman liked Lanie's essay because it showed critical thinking, but Gloria and Teresa said no way.  Basically I was the second choice.” 

(Gloria and Teresa run the Laura Ingalls museum, where Julia and Charlotte work after school.)

I would so, so have loved to see this line of thought extended. Proposing the word “invaders” instead of “settlers” is a big deal, and an important conversation. Alas, this language is never revisited; Charlotte and Julia encounter some mean boys, and further solidify their friendship. Charlotte doesn’t comment on the settlers/invaders question, internally or overtly. This scene factors into my conclusion that Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life evolves, rather than interrupts, racism. More on that later.

The Trail of Tears essay, which Mrs. Newman assigned to Charlotte on page 126, is next referenced, briefly, on page 169, when Charlotte asks Rose if she’s seen the essay (Rose took it to read it). On page 173, Charlotte and Mrs. Newman have a brief conversation about it; Mrs. Newman brings it up again on page 226. Charlotte still hasn’t read it.

On page 198, police show up at Charlotte’s house with the news that someone vandalized the Ingalls museum (spray painted “I hate Walnut Grove I hate Lara”); they suspect Charlotte. This plotline dominates the rest of the book, and culminates in (spoiler) Rose confessing that she did it.  Some relevant passages I pulled (p. 206-207):

Everyone in Walnut Grove was proud of the town’s history. When they drove by the museum and saw those ugly words, they’d feel angry and sad.

But that didn’t explain my feelings, either. They went even deeper than that. I realized I felt terrible for Laura [...] after living on the lonely Kansas prairie, the Ingalls had found civilization in Walnut Grove. They had a real school, a nice church, and good neighbors. [...] 

“Mom, I think I’m feeling Laura’s energy—for real. She’s sad about what happened to the museum. [...] Whoever did it couldn’t even spell her name. They’re stupid and mean.’” 

I paused at this. Are spray painted words on the side of the Ingalls museum uglier than the existence of a museum glorifying participants in Manifest Destiny?

I had similar thoughts regarding this exchange between Charlotte and Mrs. Newman (p. 225-226):

“I know I wrote a negative essay, but I was mad when I wrote it. I’ve spent a couple months in Laura’s world. I like her. [...] Maybe the person who did it doesn’t even hate Laura Ingalls. Maybe they just wanted to destroy something that makes other people happy.” 

“Unfortunately, there are people like that in the world.” 

Then, there’s this conversation between Charlotte and her mom (p. 207-208):

“There’s something about our country and the West,” she said in a dreamy voice. “It’s romantic. [...] we have this sense of pride in conquering the Wild West.”

“When they built the railroad, men would ride the trains with shotguns and kill buffalo just because it was fun, like an old-fashioned version of a video game.” 

“That’s terrible,” Mom said.

“Westward expansion stunk if you were Native American.”

“I know.”

This is never followed up on. Mom never accounts for why, if she knew all along that Westward Invasion "stunk" for Native people, she felt comfortable talking in a "dreamy" voice about the "romance" and "pride" of "conquering" the "Wild West". I conclude from this that Mom values Native lives less than she values the romantic story she tells herself about American history. I wondered if Tougas ever considered having Charlotte ask something like, "Well, if you knew, why did you say what you just said?" and I wonder what Mom would reply. "Because I weighed the injustice of the atrocity of Westward Invasion against the mental discomfort it would cause me to let go of my romantic vision of history and decided to prioritize my gooey feelings," perhaps? Or maybe a simple, "Because I know, but I just don't care that much about Native people." 

On page 275-278, Rose comes clean and admits to vandalizing the Ingalls museum. Her speech is the closest the book comes to actually interrogating racism, and I’m sure will be referenced by many as evidence that Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life is, in fact, anti-racist. Mom puts lavender oil in a diffuser to help them relax and stay focused on why she did it. Here’s what Rose says (275-278):

“I read Charlotte’s school assignment about the Trail of Tears. The article was about how settling the West destroyed the Indians. They literally had to walk hundreds of miles so the pioneers could have their own land. And they got sick and there wasn’t enough food and the weather was terrible, but the government didn’t care and the pioneers didn’t care. The Indians had to keep marching, and tons of them died. Tons!”

At that point, Mom dabbed the oil behind her ears.

Rose said, “We have museums all over the United States bragging about how great we are because we built a new country. We have books and movies and songs. But our stories are wrong.” Her shoulders slumped. “Can I try some of that oil?”

I put a drop on my finger and rubbed it on Rose’s wrist. Freddy said, “I know what you mean, but I’m glad we’re here. I’m glad there are fifty states and roads and the Internet and that I get to live in this country.”

“If you’re glad, then you don’t know what I mean,” Rose said.

[...]

“So you decided to spray-paint Laura’s building because the government was terrible to the Indians?” Freddy said. “Am I the only one who thinks that’s ridiculous?”

“No. I think it’s ridiculous,” I said.

“Let her finish,” Mom said. “Go on, Rose.”

Rose frowned. “Here’s something I bet you didn’t know. In the first version of Little House On the Prairie, which came out almost one hundred years ago, Laura described the prairie like this: ‘There the wild animals wandered and fed as though they were in a pasture that stretched much farther than a man could see, and there were no people. Only Indians lived there.’ I memorized it.”

Freddy thought for a minute. “So? What’s your point?”

“She said no people. Only Indians. She basically said Indians aren’t people.”

Slowly Freddy’s face registered her point. Mom said, “I don’t remember that. I’ve read that book a dozen times.”

“Someone wrote to the publisher, and they changed the word people to settlers for the next printing. Laura felt terrible above it. She didn’t mean it the way it came out. Still, it bugs me. I can’t stop thinking about it. That’s why I quit reading the biography.”

“I had no idea,” Mom said. “How did I not know this?”

“That’s the way people were back then,” Freddy said. “It’s not right to blame people now for what happened one hundred years ago. Laura Ingalls didn’t force the Indians to move. The museum ladies didn’t force them to move, either. Do you want us to demolish all our cities and make it buffalo land again?”

“That’s not the point!” Rose yelled. “You got me all side-tracked.”

I love what Rose says. Of all the characters in the book, she’s the one who interests me most, because what she learns about Manifest Destiny, the Transcontinental Railroad, and the Trail of Tears is real for her. She has, at this point, learned that a societal sickness leads to dehumanizing Native people, and to a museum celebrating Manifest Destiny--and upon learning this, she actively changes.  Early in the book, Rose is downright tickled to be living in Walnut Grove, and wants to be Laura in the annual town play (p. 94). Upon learning that her prior version of reality is wrong, Rose changes her mindset and her behavior. Is she right to spray paint the museum? Of course not, but that act of vandalism is trivial compared to the larger systemic and cultural problems with which she is grappling.

Unfortunately, Charlotte’s reactions, and the ultimate note on which the book finishes, undo much of the good work Rose does in these few pages (and make me wonder if it’s possible for an author to write a character--Rose, in this case--who understands the world better than the author does).

On page 288, Charlotte and Mrs. Newman again discuss the Trail of Tears article, which, again, was introduced on page 126. Charlotte still hasn’t read it, but lies and says she did. Mrs. Newman isn’t fooled, and they talk about why Charlotte hasn’t read it (p. 288-289):

“Did you read the article about Native Americans?”

“The Trail of Tears article?” My eyes went wide, and I stumbled through an answer, trying to remember what Rose had said about it. “Yes. It was interesting and fascinating. And very sad, too, which is why the word tears is in it. Because it’s so sad.”

[...]

“Why? Why haven’t you read it?”

I shrugged.

[...]

“I don’t need to read it to know it’s really, really bad. I’ve read enough about westward expansion.”

“Reading and understanding are two different things.”

“I know terrible things happened to Native Americans. And terrible things happened to the Chinese with the railroad and poor white farmers in the Depression and all the people fighting over who owned Texas. I’m twelve. I can only take so much sad stuff and guilt before I get Prairie Madness.” Mrs. Newman didn’t respond, so I said, “I will read it. I promise. But not for a while.”

Mrs. Newman thought for a moment. “You have the intellectual capacity to think critically about history. I didn’t consider how overwhelming it might be.”

“I don’t want to hate Laura Ingalls or pioneers or America.”

“That’s absolutely not my intention. It’s just that our country’s story is more complicated than most people realize. Laura’s story is more complicated.”

My heart sank when I read this.  My hopes were up so high, after Rose’s awakening, and then… sigh.

The effect of this passage--especially after Rose’s speech--is to recenter and re-prioritize Whiteness at the expense of Native people.

Let’s unpack. Charlotte says the Trail of Tears is “sad… which is why the word tears is in it.”  It’s supposed to be funny, a moment of lightness and humor. Four thousand people died on the Trail of Tears. Charlotte, and Tougas, trivialize their deaths in this passage. And, ultimately, Charlotte makes an active and conscious decision to prioritize her own comfort over all else. Children younger than Charlotte died because of the 1830 Indian Removal Act (Trail of Tears); Charlotte decides she can’t even read about that, and Mrs. Newman comforts and her affirms her fragility in this moment.

Read this again from the point of view of a Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, or Chickasaw child who has heard about the Trail of Tears since infancy. That child does not have the luxury of waiting until they’re older to understand the concept of genocide. How would Charlotte’s joke about the Trail of Tears, and her decision to wait to read the article until she can handle it better, land with that child? What about Charlotte’s, and Mrs. Newman’s, declaration that they don’t want to hate Laura Ingalls or the government forces that destroyed Native lives--how would a Native child, who feels rightful and understandable rage, feel upon reading those words? I’d feel minimized, gaslit, like my and my people’s concerns had been erased--for the billionth time.

What makes this so infuriating is that it comes on the heels of Rose’s speech about the injustices of westward invasion. It’s like Tougas dangles a book, a world, in which White people are forced to reckon with the ugliness of Manifest Destiny and all that came along with it--and then snatches it away, says “Nope, sorry, Native kids, we have to comfort and prioritize the status quo at your expense.  Again.”

Another example of Tougas’ dangling, then snatching away, genuine equity for Native people is in her treatment of Gloria and Teresa, who run the Ingalls museum. Remember that Gloria and Teresa rejected an essay that argued for justice for Native people (p. 134) Julia tells Charlotte:

“She [Lanie] wrote that we should have a museum for Native Americans because they lived around here first, and they had these battles with settlers.  She said the early farmers shouldn't be called settlers because the land was already settled. They were more like invaders." Julia leaned forward and whispered, "My grandma heard Mrs. Newman liked Lanie's essay because it showed critical thinking, but Gloria and Teresa said no way. Basically I was the second choice.” 

I was sure, when I read this, that at some point Charlotte (or Rose) would hold Gloria and Teresa accountable; that they would have to take a hard look at what it meant to shut down, refuse to hear, a truth-telling essay, and what messages they sent to Native kids when they refused to give a platform to a voice advocating for a Native museum. This never happens. In fact, later in the book Charlotte thinks well of Gloria and Teresa as support for her (p. 149):

Actually, the people who'd been my cheerleaders lately weren't my family.  Mrs. Newman. Gloria. Teresa...” 

Gloria and Teresa also serve to further the Charlotte-as-suspect plotline; thanks to a misunderstanding, Charlotte yells at them, which lends credence to the theory that she was the vandal. Towards the end of the book, Charlotte realizes she needs to apologize to them.

At the end of the day, Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life gives lip service to anti-racist and anti-colonialist advocates. Their arguments and voices are given minimal space in the book; Rose’s speech is great, but it’s three pages in a 296-page book. The book prioritizes White comfort and White fragility over justice and equity for Native people (who are never actually given a voice--no tribe is named, no Native individuals are referenced or quoted, and oh, how great would it have been for Charlotte and co. to delve deep into The Birchbark House series?). Characters like Gloria and Teresa who enact and perpetuate White supremacy are not held accountable, but are framed as overwhelmingly sympathetic--nice White ladies. And ultimately, according to Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life, while it’s important for everyone to understand the complexity of history, it’s equally important for White kids to wait until they feel up to the task of learning about other people’s trauma, and to not hate Laura Ingalls or her people. Indeed, the Author’s Note leads me to believe that Tougas is an unapologetic Ingalls fan--she recommends three biographies of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and alas, no books authored by Native people.

While reading Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life, and especially at the end, I thought over and over of this quote from The Lines We Cross by Randa Abdel-Fattah. This line is spoken by Mina, who came to Australia as an Afghan refugee, to Michael, a White character learning about his racial privilege (p. 219):

“You want me to make it easier for you to confront your privilege because God knows even antiracism has to be done in a way that makes the majority comfortable? Sorry... I don’t have time to babysit you through your enlightenment.”

Charlotte’s choice to read the essay or not--to include knowledge of the Trail of Tears in her consciousness, or wait until she’s ready to handle it--that choice is the essence of White privilege.

We White people are getting better at making a show of anti-racism. Our methods are becoming more sophisticated. We acknowledge the anti-racist argument, provide it lip service and limited space, before snatching back control of the narrative and recentering our own comfort. Read Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life as the next step, the next generation, the next wave of racism. Watch closely, especially if you’re White; racism is evolving before our very eyes.

Not Recommended: THE ITSY BITSY PILGRIM

Eds. note: American Indians in Children's Literature is pleased to share Allie Jane Bruce's review of The Itsy Bitsy Pilgrim, by Jeffry Burton. Published in 2017 by Little Simon, I agree with Allie--this book is not recommended. --Debbie Reese

****

The Itsy Bitsy Pilgrim, by Jeffry Burton, Ill. Sanja Rescek. Little Simon.

Reviewed by Allie Jane Bruce

In 1863, a White woman named Sarah Josepha Hale wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln.  Hale, a writer and editor (she is most famous for authoring “Mary Had a Little Lamb”), had an idea that she thought might help heal a divided nation: Lincoln should establish a national holiday to celebrate a fictionalized version of an historical encounter between Wampanoag people and English invaders in 1621.  The narrative she told got a lot of things wrong, including the idea that the English people invited Wampanoag people to feast with them (they issued no invitation), and left out even more, such as the larger colonial genocide surrounding that “first Thanksgiving” (for more information about the actual events of 1621 Plymouth, check out 1621: A New Look At Thanksgiving by Catherine Grace and Margaret Bruchac, National Geographic Children’s Books, 9780792261391).  Lincoln liked this bowdlerized version of history, and agreed to create the holiday—Thanksgiving—that Hale suggested.  The story was canonized and enshrined.

150 years later, myriad books for children, including THE ITSY BITSY PILGRIM, are still telling that story.  In addition to the atrocious rhyme scheme, vapid art, and overall insipid feel, THE ITSY BITSY PILGRIM checks all the usual boxes in perpetuating the Thanksgiving myth:

• The “pilgrims” (mice) in question are centered and framed as non-problematic settlers rather than increasingly hostile invaders
• The “pilgrims'” work—building houses, shoveling snow, growing food—is portrayed as entirely their own accomplishment (the Native folks do not show up until after Winter), when in reality, without Wampanoag help from the beginning, the people from England would likely have perished

• The tribe (Wampanoag) is not named—in fact, these “new friends” are not even identified as First/Native Nations
• The Wampanoag clothing is simplistic and stereotypical, down to the requisite feathers
• The pilgrim mice issue an invitation to the Wampanoag mice (this time, to “play”)
• Both groups sit and eat together in an uncomplicated, thanks-filled, joyful meal, after which…
• …the story ends, free from genocide, displacement, structural inequities, or any other inconvenient injustices.

That a board book could tackle a subject like genocide is, I know, unrealistic, and I do not mean to suggest that it should.  I know that the 2-4 year old brain (for which this book is intended) is not built to understand such a concept (although young children hailing from cultures who’ve experienced genocide are often, inevitably, exposed to language and conversations about genocide from the time they’re born).  

It is crucial, however, to examine the messages we have sent and continue to send, year after year, about Thanksgiving; at its essence, the holiday story airbrushes history, minimizes Native trauma, and assuages White guilt.  No single board book can correct that, but it can perpetuate—or counter—those messages.  The Itsy Bitsy Pilgrim unequivocally perpetuates them.  I unequivocally do not recommend it.

What happened to "A Second Perspective" at All The Wonders?

Eds. note, 3/30/17: Please see updates to this post, including Matthew Winner's explanation.

First, a brief overview of what happened to my "Second Perspective" post at the All the Wonders website (more on who they are, later):

• On Wednesday (March 22, 2017), I reviewed The Secret Project by Jonah and Jeanette Winters.
• On Thursday morning (March 23, 2017), my review was added (with my permission) to the All the Wonders page about that book, as "A Second Perspective."
• On Thursday evening (March 23, 2017), my review was gone.

Now, the details. 

On March 22, I wrote my review of The Secret Project, loaded it to AICL, and posted a link to the review on Facebook and Twitter. Then I looked on Twitter to see if others had reviewed it. If someone I know has reviewed a book I've also reviewed, I'll generally ask them to take a look at my review. Donalyn Miller and Jillian Heise added links to my review to their reviews on Goodreads.

I saw that The Secret Project was featured at All the Wonders. I read their interview with Jonah Winters (the author), and agree with what he said about propaganda. I felt then (and still do) that some changes to the book would make it outstanding. I wanted to listen to the podcast and read the interview with the illustrator, but had other things to do at that moment. Because I know All the Wonders is widely read by teachers and librarians, I asked them if they could add my review so that they could use information I share when they teach or read the book.

They said yes. On Thursday morning, my review was on their site as "A Second Perspective." I went back to my review and added a link to their site (and a screen cap of their introduction to my review). They wrote:

Here at All the Wonders, we strive to represent diversity and inclusion in the books we share. Debbie Reese, co-founder of American Indians in Children's Literature drew our attention to a recent review of The Secret Project she wrote where she discusses concerns over how Native Americans were represented in the story and illustrations. Specifically, the depiction of the Los Alamos Ranch School as isolated from other inhabitants to the region -- which it was not -- and the use of the phrase "nobody knows they are there" in reference to the scientists working on the bomb, which marginalizes the presence of the Native people living there. 

The story told in The Secret Project through words and illustrations is powerful, but in order to understand and appreciate more fully the context in which the even happened, it is important for readers to be aware of the Native people in and of the surrounding area.

Then, I went back to All the Wonders to read the interview with the illustrator, but it was gone. A little bit later, the interview with the author was gone, too. Why were they gone?

On Thursday night, I had an email from Matthew saying they had made a difficult decision to remove my review.

That night on Twitter, Sam Bloom of Reading While White, asked Matthew what happened to it. Here's a screen cap of his question:

Matthew replied, saying that they value "reading and being challenged by that review, but ultimately decided as a team to support the conversation in other ways". Here's a screen cap of his reply:

Early Friday morning, I replied to Matthew to acknowledge what they had done and let him know that I was about to get in my car for a day-long road trip and didn't have time to write back at length about the decision.

Just before I got in my car, I saw that the author and illustrator interviews were back on the All the Wonders page.

As I write this post, it is Saturday morning. I'm reading through what happened yesterday on Twitter.

Kathleen Horning of the Cooperative Children's Book Center  asked Matthew for an example of "other ways." He replied, saying "Such as in a conversation on an open forum such as Twitter where all stakeholders can participate in real time." And, here's the screen capture of that:

In an email sent to me yesterday, Matthew suggested I contribute a post for All the Wonders, that consists of books I recommend. He also referenced a Twitter conversation. I haven't replied to him yet. I'm conflicted. If I say yes to his invitation, I'll be able to bring visibility to Native writers.

I'm not angry at Matthew, and I hope this blog post doesn't cause him to withdraw his invitation.

Here's what I think, and some back story...

In posting my review at their site, All the Wonders found themselves mired in the politics of children's literature. Did Jonah Winters demand that his interview be removed? Did Jeanette Winters demand that her interview be removed? Did their publisher make demands of the team at All the Wonders? Did they make threats?! I know--that sounds dramatic--but there's back story to all this that prompts me to use the word "threat."

The Secret Project is published by Simon and Schuster. As one of the Big Five, it is a powerful entity. Back on March 5, 2017, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled The 'Rock Star' Librarians Who Choose What Your Kids Read. That article is how I learned about All the Wonders and Matthew Winner. He's featured in it as one of the three men characterized as rock stars (the three strongly objected to being the focus of the article and to being characterized that way. Women had also been interviewed but were not included).

The article generated a lot of discussion. Allie Jane Bruce of Reading While White did a terrific post about it. She asked some pointed questions. Are these three librarians being used by publishers as a way to get free advertising for their books? Were/are they (inadvertently) functioning as marketers for publishers? Please read the comments to the post. Among them is one from Matthew Winner. He disagreed with her remarks about advertising and marketing. He also said that he wants to increase the diversity of the podcasts at All the Wonders. In my comment to Allie's post, I recommended he add Native writers. He and I started talking, via email, about possibilities and I think one will be there, fairly soon.

I also asked him, in an email, if he might add critical content to some of the pages they do at All the Wonders. He didn't say yes or no, but I believed (and still believe) that he and his team are very interested in being more diverse with what they're doing on their site. So... last week when I saw that All the Wonders had a new page up on The Secret Project, I decided to ask them to add a link to my review and was thrilled that they did. Then, as you know, they removed it.

So, what happened to "A Second Perspective" at All the Wonders?

Did Simon and Schuster put pressure on the All the Wonders team to remove my review? If Simon and Schuster gives All the Wonders books, did they threaten to withhold future books? If Simon and Schuster controls access to its authors and illustrators, did they threaten to withhold access to their authors and illustrators? Did they say "get rid of Debbie's review, or else"?

I don't know if the All the Wonders team was pressured to remove my review, and I'm not going to ask Matthew that question.

It seems to me that the team at All the Wonders was put into a difficult position. They want to offer critical content of books along with podcasts and interviews, but their effort to do so with my review didn't succeed.

I've got lot of questions. Do publishers wield that much power over sites like All the Wonders? If so, that's not good, at all, for anyone. If not, then.... what happened to my review? Right now, several people are wondering what happened.

Update (3/30/17) -- A Response from Matthew Winner

A few days after loading this post, I went back to School Library Journal to read "Rock Star Librarians" Article Hits Sour Note. Written by Addie Matteson and Matthew Winner, it addressed a major concern with the article in the Wall Street Journal that featured three male librarians. This paragraph stood out to me:

The fact that diverse voices weren’t heard, valued, or represented in the WSJ article made us look more closely at the people we look to as leaders, the authors and role models we invite to our schools, the books we choose to read, review, and purchase. We need to do more, and we need to be better. If we want our students to see themselves on our bookshelves and in our programming, we need to actively work toward that goal. How can we expect the world (or the Wall Street Journal) to see school libraries as places where diversity is honored and celebrated if we are not working to make them that way?

Winner's decision to use my review of The Secret Project was evidence of his wish to "do more" and "be better." But, with those words as context, his decision to delete it made the decision to use it in the first place even worse.

I shared that excerpt on Twitter yesterday morning (3/29/17), again asking why my review was taken down. Kate Messner, Laurie Halse Anderson, and Justine Larbaleister retweeted it and asked the question, too.

At 8:14 PM, Winner replied to Kate Messner and Laurie Halse Anderson, saying he would respond. Here's a screencap of his tweet to Laurie:

At 8:41 Winner submitted a response, using the blog's comment form. I saw it in this morning's email and am pasting it here:

Hi everyone. I want to apologize publicly here to anyone who was offended by our decision to include Debbie’s review of The Secret Project in our feature at All Wonders and then retract it later that day.

We feature one book each month in addition to our regular content, and the selected book is one that our team believes stands above the rest. We think of our features as an award from our team, and we honor the chosen book by compiling various forms of content that celebrate it. We even describe the feature to the artists involved as "a week-long celebration of your book." These words, we believe, enter us into a verbal agreement that we will shine a positive light on their work, and it is based upon this agreement that the publisher grants us permission to license their images, words, and behind-the-scenes content. I made a misstep, then, by surprising Jonah and Jeanette Winter and their publisher, Simon & Schuster, with a critique, and introducing an element of debate into the feature. After careful reconsideration of these factors, we decided to pull the post. 

I know now that this series of events confused and offended a number of individuals. I am sorry for that. We (myself along with the team) had the best intentions, which was to offer a “second perspective” post from Debbie, who saw something that we did not see in our reads through the book. We consider critically all of the books that we include on our site, and we welcome discussions about how they are serving readers, but our features in particular are not designed for that purpose. They are designed to give children multiple entry points into what we believe to be special books. 

Once we came to the decision to pull Debbie’s post, we immediately communicated to her via email that we would be removing her post for these reasons and gave her an open invitation to address American Indian representation in children’s books on our site or in the form of a Twitter chat. Though we are still waiting for an official response from Debbie, it is our sincere hope that she will choose to work with us in the future to raise awareness about misrepresentations of American Indians in children’s literature.

Our goal at All the Wonders is not to silence, but to raise the voices of authors, artists, bloggers, and critics in service of readers. I regret the way these events have unfolded, but I consider this an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and a renewal of our mission to build positive relationships with all of our colleagues. 

Sincerely,

Matthew C. WinnerAll The Wonders co-founder 

Matthew did, as he wrote above, email me to say they were removing my post. Specifically, he wrote:

 [We] dd not feel that the piece added to the focus of the feature and that the conversation it beckons would be better served in other contexts throughout the site. We felt that the topic begs for discussion, and that is not something that the feature is suited for or capable of.

That line was particularly ambiguous (to me). He went on to say that they wanted me to write about Native writers and be a guest on a Twitter chat they host.

That invitation is fine, but it is a far cry from what a Second Perspective on books can do for teachers and librarians. When they added my review as A Second Perspective, I thought of all the other books they had featured and that could use A Second Perspective. One, for example, is Laura Jimenez's perspective on Telgemeier's Ghosts. Frankly, I was excited at the possibilities.

Do I want to contribute a post about Native writers to All the Wonders? I'm not sure.

I still think that their decision not to proceed with A Second Perspective is a mistake. A week-long celebration of a book is a mistake if there are concerns about that book's representations of marginalized people.

Winner and the team at All the Wonders were right when they said this, to introduce my review as A Second Perspective at their site:

The story told in The Secret Project through words and illustrations is powerful, but in order to understand and appreciate more fully the context in which the even happened, it is important for readers to be aware of the Native people in and of the surrounding area.

Saying that, they recognized Pueblo children as readers. Indeed, they recognized all children who live in that area who know more about the history and cultures of the area than Jonah and Jeanette Winters told them in The Secret Project. 

As Winner's response says, their decision to add A Second Perspective surprised Jonah and Jeanette Winters, and Simon and Schuster, too, because of his verbal agreement to shine a positive light on their work. That, I believe, explains why their interviews disappeared from the site when A Second Perspective was published. Once that second perspective was removed, their interviews went back up.

Those two people and their publisher set the terms under which Matthew Winner and the team at All the Wonders will speak about their books.

That's not surprising, but Winner is a librarian by training and profession. From that position as a librarian, he is providing a huge service to teachers and librarians who read All the Wonders.

But is it a service to his profession? I think it is a service to publishers. With that as a fact, his words in the SLJ article ring hollow. Doing better doesn't mean just talking up the good. Books get better when we talk about the problems in them, too.

Update, March 31, 2017

Yesterday, Kate Messner asked Matthew Winner for a clarification:

To clarify...were you asked by S&S to remove the original images/words/content after you'd added Debbie's Second Perspective?

He replied saying:

S&S expressed their regret, but we as @_AllTheWonders maintain full autonomy over what we create and what we share on our site. 

and

S&S was very specific about saying they would not pressure us to take down the post. 

Big News about Hoffman's AMAZING GRACE

Eds. note (10/2/2015): See update at bottom. It appears the change is only to the U.S. edition. 

In a comment to his post about weeding books, Roger Sutton said that Horn Book just received the 25th anniversary edition of Amazing Grace and that the page on which Grace is shown playing Indian is gone (she's pretending to be Longfellow's Hiawatha). Here's his comment:

This is the illustration he's talking about. It was in the original version of the book, published by Dial in 1991. The author is Mary Hoffman; the illustrator is Caroline Binch:

For those who don't know the book, the main character is a girl named Grace who wants to be Peter Pan in the play her class is going to do. Other kids tell her she can't be Peter because she's a girl and he's a boy, and, that she's Black and he's White. Stung--as any kid would be--she imagines herself in all kinds of roles, including Hiawatha. That she's "by the shining Big-Sea-Water" tells us she is imagining herself as the Hiawatha of Longfellow's imagination (there was, in fact, a real person named Hiawatha).

But see how Grace "plays" Hiawatha? In a stereotypical way. She sits cross legged, torso bare, arms crossed and raised up (I don't know why so many statues show Indians with arms crossed and lifted off the chest that way), barefoot, with a painted face and stoic look.

Amazing Grace came out in 1991. In 1992, a person from whom I've learned a great deal, wrote about it. That person: Ginny Moore Kruse. In her article "No Single Season: Multicultural Literature for All Children, published in Wilson Library Bulletin 66 30-3, she wrote:

Are the book's multiple themes so welcome that the act of "playing Indian" escaped comment by most U.S. reviewers...that critics relaxed their standards for evaluation? No, such images recur so frequently that when they do, nobody notices. Well, almost nobody but the children who in real life are Indian. 

Claiming that only American Indian children are apt to notice "playing Indian," "sitting Indian style," or picture book animals "dressed up" like American Indians does not excuse the basic mistake. Self-esteem is decreased for the affected peoples, an accurate portrayals are skewed for everyone else.

This change is big news in children's literature. I'm grateful to Roger for sharing it. But let's return to his words. Roger suggested that the absence of Grace/Hiawatha in the new edition is the result of "public shaming."

Its absence can be seen as the result of public shaming---but it also be seen as a a step forward in what we give to children.

Might we say it is gone because its author, illustrator, and publisher decided that the self-esteem of Native children matters? And, maybe, they decided that having it in there was a disservice to non-Native readers, too, skewing what they know about Native peoples? Maybe they just decided it was dated, and in an effort to market the book to today's readers, that page would hurt sales.

Today, I wish I was near Ginny's hometown. I'd call her and see if she wanted to join me for a cup of tea. I'm sure it'd be a delightful conversation.


Updated on October 2, 2015 at 9:23 AM

Librarian Allie Jane Bruce wrote to tell me about a review of Amazing Grace at the UK website, Mirrors, Windows, and Doors. Based on what I read in the review, there are two versions of the 25th anniversary edition of Amazing Grace. The one Roger Sutton has is the US edition. The one in the UK remains unchanged. Here's an excerpt of the UK review:

The double-page that shows Grace as Hiawatha and then as ‘Mowgli in the back garden jungle’ does, however, need to be held up as a reminder that breadth of experience through reading is important for young children: whilst Grace’s story highlights a can-do attitude and the notion that you can be whatever you want to be because of what you do not what you are, the stereotypes that have been passed down through some of these classic stories can only be broken by ensuring that children read contemporary stories set within the cultures they represent.  There is still too much of a dislocation in the UK between dressing up in a feathered headdress with a painted face and awareness of how that sits within contemporary Native American culture.

I guess that the people involved in the 25th anniversary edition think it is ok to let kids in the UK have that page. Obviously, I disagree.

This, however, is familiar. In 2010, a British production of Peter Pan was slated for Canada. Changes were made to it in an effort to be sensitive to First Nations people. Given the debased depictions of Native peoples in kids books imported from the UK to the US, I think it is wrong to leave that page in Amazing Grace. Worse than wrong, actually. It is a disservice to the children whose stereotypical ideas of Native people are affirmed by that page, and a disservice to those who learn that image for the first time, when they read Amazing Grace. 

Librarians launch blog: READING WHILE WHITE

Yesterday (September 15, 2015), a new blog was launched. Titled Reading While White, its contributors are--as the blog title indicates--white. The contributors are librarians who I know personally and professionally.

The most recent issue of Children and Libraries (Summer 2015), has articles by two of the contributors. Kathleen T. Horning's "Milestones for Diversity in Literature and Library Services" is a timeline of significant events in children's literature but it is loaded with information. She noted, for example, that in 1984, Jamake Highwater was exposed as a fraud. She referenced Akwesasne Notes, a source that most people in children's literature weren't reading at the time. It points to the depth of her commitment to diversity. She's at the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Allie Jane Bruce's article is "On Being White: A Raw, Honest Conversation." In it, she shares a personal story about how, over time, she became fully aware of her identity and a societal reluctance to talk about whiteness. Avoiding that discussion, she writes, lets racism be "other people's problem." She wrote Why a White Blog?, which is the first post at Reading While White. It is provocative and engaging, too. Yesterday as I read through Twitter, I saw that many people excerpted parts of her post as they shared news about the blog. She's at Bank Street College in New York City where she's done some outstanding work with children, teaching them to read critically. See her recent post, Rewriting History: American Indians, Europeans, and an Oak Tree.

Something both women and I share is a commitment to children. My article in the summer issue of Children and Libraries is the Last Word column. I wrote about my niece's baby, her names (one is her Tewa name, the language we speak at Nambe), and children's books I want her to have.

I look forward to reading Reading While White. Because it is written by librarians, I think librarians will be especially interested in what is shared there.

AS AN OAK TREE GROWS, written and illustrated by G. Brian Karas

In early October, over on Twitter, Jillian asked me if I'd seen As An Oak Tree Grows, by G. Brian Karas. She noted the wigwam in it, and that a "big stopping point" for her and her students was the page where the text says that the little boy "grew up and moved away."

As An Oak Tree Grows was published in September of this year (2014) by Nancy Paulsen Books (an imprint of Penguin Young Readers).

Below are photos (apologies for them being kind of blurry) of the first three double-paged spreads of As An Oak Tree Grows. 

First, we see "a young boy" planting an acorn on a late summer day. See him in the middle of the double-paged spread?

At the bottom left corner of the next page (see enlarged photo to the right), we see a year (1775) and on that page, we read "later that year" the tree sprouts. So, the time when the boy plants the acorn is meant to be summer, 1775.






Go back to the page (above) with the little boy in the center. Notice there's nobody there except for the boy and someone on the water, in a canoe. They're obviously meant to be Native. Karas includes a wigwam, so he must know a little about the people he is showing us on this page. But! Karas doesn't say anything about the boy's tribal nation. That omission matters to a Native reader, and it ought to matter to every reader. Without that information, readers are kept ignorant of who Native peoples were/are in terms of our distinct identities as nations. And, the omission obscures the fact that European and Native leaders engaged in diplomatic negotiations (treaties!) about the land and its use.

One question you could ask about the boy (as Jillian did), is where are the rest of his people? This "empty land" image is a big part of the justification for colonization. Unused land! There for the taking! Wrong. 

On the second page we see the boy taking his dad to see the little tree (question for botanists: I think the time sequence for the acorn sprouting is off a bit). See what has changed on the shoreline? Karas shows us that someone (Europeans) have established themselves and, as the two ships in the water show, more are coming. The page suggests a rather idyllic life with two cultures co-existing, but it was far from that! Tribal nations along the northeastern coast had, by 1775, been fighting to protect their homelands for over 100 years. 

The third double-paged spread (below) is the one that tells us "The boy grew up and moved away. Farmers now lived here." That page was the "stopping point" for Jillian and her class. She and her students know, I think, that it was more than simply a boy growing up and moving away. An uncritical reader likely wouldn't notice the problems in those two sentences, but there are, in fact, many things to note. The boy and his nation were likely forced off the land that they had been farming. Yes--they were probably farmers, too, but the pervasive image of "primitive Indians" usually pushes that fact off to the side.  

With the Indians conveniently out of sight and therefore, out of mind, Karas can show us what happens to the tree and the lands around it as time passes. That is the purpose of the book, and I'm certain lot of people are going to love this book, but...

When will we see an end to stories where Indians just go away? We didn't go away.


Update, Sunday October 12, 5:59 PM:

I tweeted a link to this review to Nancy Paulsen, of Nancy Paulsen Books (publisher of As An Oak Tree Grows. Here's a screencapture of our conversation:

For those of us who have trouble reading the screencaptures, here's the text of that series of tweets:

Debbie Reese@nancyrosep Good morning, Ms. Paulsen. FYI: my review of AS AN OAK TREE GROWS: [link to my review]

Nancy PaulsenKaras showing changing landscape; not passing judgement abt ills of citification @debreese AS AN OAK TREE GROWS [link to my review]

Debbie ReeseWas there any discussion re boy leaving land for white farms/prosperity? @nancyrosep

Nancy PaulsenThis bk abt revealing changing landscape; maybe for another bk @debreese: ...any discussion re boy leaving land for white farms/prosperity?

Nancy Paulsen& hopefully teachers will discuss terrible cost of "progress" @debreese ...my review of AS AN OAK TREE GROWS: [link to my review]. 

Thankfully, Jillian (the teacher who brought this book to my attention) has a critical eye. Several people on Goodreads do, too. That is encouraging! I wonder if Paulsen or Karas are reading those reviews? Might they do something different (if they reprint it later), in light of this reception to that part of the book? 

Or--maybe they're focusing on reviews at review journals which either didn't see or didn't think it important to note the problems with the opening pages... 

Update: August 13, 2015

Allie Jane Bruce at Bank Street College Center for Children's Literature shared a discussion she had with students about the book. Take a look: Rewriting History: American Indians, Europeans, and an Oak Tree.