Willa of the Wood

Willa of the Wood by Robert Beatty. Disney-Hyperion, 2018

Willa of the Wood is described as a middle-grade adventure. It's also a "series starter" -- other titles are in the works. It features some characters who are identified as Cherokee, which is why AICL is taking a look at it.

Spoilers ahead, probably.

Robert Beatty writes the extremely popular Serafina series. He has lots of fans. Evidently many of them are on a "team" that reviews free advance copies of his books on Goodreads, Amazon, etc. Willa of the Wood has received hundreds of favorable reviews, many of them over-the-top with enthusiasm for the plot, the main character, the fantasy world, etc. Quite a few of the reviewers acknowledge being part of the review team. Not saying that's wrong. But the boost is impressive, and I'd love to see Native writers get that sort of advance attention! More about the reviews in a moment.

Willa is a fairy-story of sorts, set in the very early 1900s in the mountains of what is currently called Tennessee. I was reminded (not always happily) of Ferngully, Avatar, and My Side of the Mountain. And even of Anthem. Why does anything in this fairy story sound like Ayn Rand? More on that shortly.

One of the themes here is assimilation vs cultural survival -- not of human societies but of a fantasy society the author calls the Faeran. They look kind of similar to humans, but have quills on their necks and sharp teeth. They have long kept their existence separate from humans, though the Cherokee supposedly know about them and tell stories of them "around their campfires at night." The Faeran have magical connections to nature. Or at least, they used to. Few of them still do when the story begins.

The Faeran are governed by an autocrat who says they must use the "Eng-lish" language,  for their own survival. (But if the Faeran must also hide their existence from humans, why would speaking English-only be an advantage?) This supposedly god-like charismatic leader is fascinated by humans' technology. He sends squads of teen and pre-teen Faeran to take things from the humans at night. He deals with dissent as power-hungry fearful dictators do. His mantra is "There is no I, only we." (That's what made me think of Anthem, Ayn Rand's teen-friendly allegory on the evils of cooperative societies in general.) To the Faeran, that means everyone must do what the leader wants. Willa soon runs afoul of him and finds herself homeless and on the run.

Willa's grandmother ("Mamaw"), her last living relative, is murdered as the plot heats up. She has taught Willa her "wood witch" knowledge of magic, herb-lore, etc., setting the child apart from other Faeran as well as from the humans. She has also taught Willa the old language, in secret. It's part of their bond, so I wondered why Willa doesn't call her grandmother by a Faeran name instead of one that's used by real-life English-speaking humans.

Some of the human characters in Willa are white-skinned invaders -- homesteaders and greedy, forest-killing loggers. The most sympathetic white character ("the man Nathaniel") becomes Willa's friend. The other whites are destroyers of the beloved trees. We eventually learn that Nathaniel was married to a Cherokee woman who has been killed. He believes their three children were also killed, but as Willa discovers, they were kidnapped by the Faeran.

In some ways (which might or might not be intentional on Beatty's part), Faeran existence parallels the experience of those Cherokee who managed to remain on their ancestral homelands when the rest of their people were forced westward during Removal. Their land and places that were home are damaged by greedy, murderous invaders. They're under intense pressure to change in order to survive. But the book isn't about Cherokee life in the early 1900s.

Not that Cherokees are erased in Willa. The word "Cherokee" appears more than 30 times. But the Cherokee Nation itself isn't mentioned -- not its existence or its history, including Removal (which in real life enabled people like Nathaniel and the tree-killers to do their things in the mountains). The Cherokee homelands are merely the setting for Faeran vs human and Faeran vs Faeran conflict.

Some mentions of "Cherokee": Willa recalls that Mamaw told her of a "lake that the Cherokee called Atagahi". The Faeren are eager to have "Cherokee arrowheads" as tips for their spears. Willa visualizes "Cherokee farmers" and has seen them walking on the road and "trading peacefully with homesteaders." She sees a dozen "Cherokee families" fleeing some disaster, including one boy who "definitely wasn't from the same clan" as the others and who, the author hints, may not be a typical human (Willa thinks his scent is that of a mountain lion). She has overheard Cherokees and homesteaders telling stories of a black panther. She recognizes that the names on 4 grave markers are probably "Cherokee names," and she recalls that "most of the Cherokee" lived on the other side of a mountain that is important to the Faeran. The "Cherokee called it Kuwa'hi" and settlers called it Clingman's Dome.

In his author's note, Beatty thanks three Eastern Band Cherokee people by name. All three are involved in preservation/renewal of the Cherokee language, and one is described as a storyteller. Beatty doesn't make clear how their "guidance and assistance" was useful in writing Willa. I think readers would benefit from knowing that.

The Cherokee children speak English in conversation, even with each other.  And though Cherokee names, storytelling, and geography figure in the book, the Cherokee characters themselves don't mention such things. In ways that aren't explained, Willa recognizes some people on sight as Cherokee. Other than that, it's as if they're Cherokee in name only.

Speaking of names, searching on the names of the 3 children (Iska, Inali, and Hialeah) and their mother, Ahyoka, didn't turn up an authoritative source to confirm whether those would be Cherokee names. At least three of them might be, but my search didn't confirm or refute authenticity. If you're familiar with the Cherokee language or history, maybe you'll know.  I also found suggestions that a hidden lake called Atagahi is actually part of Cherokee oral traditions, but again the sources may not be trustworthy (see list of questions below). Maybe the names and stories are what Beatty asked the three Eastern Band sources about.

How might Cherokee kids feel about the way Cherokees are represented in Willa of the Wood? Is it a mirror that reflects their lives or identities in some way?

As a non-Cherokee, I saw overall positive images of Cherokee people but didn't come away with a greater understanding about Cherokee life, history, or language. If anything, I have Questions. Such as:

• Does Beatty use the concept of "clan" correctly re: Cherokee society? Maybe not, if I'm understanding info about clans on the Cherokee Nation website. 
• There's a troubling passage where Nathaniel tells Willa that his wife "was a respected member of the Paint clan, the great-great-granddaughter of a famous chief.” While it's probably fine for a white man to know his Cherokee wife's clan, why is it necessary to have her descended from "a famous chief"? Echoes of "My great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess".... 
• Is there an unimpeachable source for the story of Atagahi? What I found online is all questionable, including a book written by Shirley G. Webb who, according to the back matter on the book, is "of Cherokee heritage." But at least one of her stories has a character named Nokomis, which I'm pretty sure is an Ojibwe name, so that put the authenticity in doubt.
• And I wonder if the Cherokee boy with the mountain lion scent will show up later in the series as a shape-shifter of some kind. Shape-shifting Indigenous people seem to be really popular in fiction/fantasy by non-Native writers.

I checked to see what all those Goodreads/Amazon reviewers made of the Cherokee "presence" in the story. But surprisingly few reviewers even used the word Cherokee. One mentioned liking to hearing the names they knew, like Cherokee and Clingman's Dome. Another said that Willa is supposed to be a Cherokee night spirit. And another commented that they aren't sure if Beatty's references to Cherokees are respectful or accurate, though part of the story was based on Cherokee stories. Evidently, the Cherokee content didn't make a big impression on most of the book's early fans.

So overall, the Cherokee presence in Willa seems too generalized to provide a clear window into Cherokee lives of that time period. In fact, it barely makes an impression on a fair number of early reviewers. So, why are they there?

I'm not sure.

What might a fantasy story like Willa of the Wood gain from having Cherokee characters? Maybe a touch of historical authenticity; Cherokee people were certainly present in that part of the continent during the early 1900s. Maybe some help with the magical world-building and set-ups for future plots: Atagahi seems likely to play a role in what happens later in the series, as do the three children and that Cherokee boy who might be a something else. The Cherokee content feels like a device, or set of devices, rather than an occasion for truly representing Native people. That may become clearer with later books in the series.

I don't recommend Willa of the Wood -- because of its puzzling references to Cherokee people and its lack of transparency regarding some of the names and stories attributed to the Cherokee. If you're Cherokee citizen and have read this book, we'd like to hear your thoughts on its Cherokee content. Please comment!

--Jean Mendoza

Claiming, Misrepresenting, and Ignorance of Cherokee Identity

Some books that we give to young children carry enormous weight. The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage is one example. It is about the Supreme Court's decision in 1967, in which they ruled that people could marry whomever they loved, regardless of race.

Richard Loving was white. The woman he loved.... is misrepresented in The Case for Loving. The author, Selina Alko, echoed misrepresentations of who Jeter was when she wrote that Jeter was "part Cherokee."

Jeter didn't say that she was part Cherokee. What she said was misrepresented

Indeed, her marriage license says "Indian" and when she elaborated elsewhere, she said Rappahannock. I wrote about this at length back in March of 2015.

Yesterday morning (July 2, 2015), I read Betsy Bird's review of Alko's book. This part brought me up short:

A side issue has arisen concerning Mildred’s identification as Native American and whether or not the original case made more of her African-American roots because it would build a stronger case in court. This is a far bigger issue than a picture book could hope to encompass, though I would be interested in a middle grade or young adult nonfiction book on the topic that went into the subject in a little more depth.

Actually, saying that it "brought me up short" doesn't adequately describe what I felt.

First, I knew that Betsy was referencing my post. I took her use of "side issue" as being dismissive of me, and by extension, Arica Coleman (who I cite extensively), and by further extension, Native people who speak up about how we are represented--and misrepresented--in society, and in children's books.  On one hand, I felt angry at Betsy. As a teacher, though, I understand that we're all on a continuum of knowing about subjects that are outside our particular realm of expertise.

Representation, and misrepresentation, of Native identity is important.

Because so many make that (fraudulent) claim, it strikes me as a significant wrong to see, in The Case of Loving, words that say Jeter was Cherokee when she did not say she was. It unwittingly casts her over in that land in which people claim an identity that is not really theirs to claim.

Here's another reason that Betsy's review (posted on July 2, 2015) bothered me. I read it within a specific moment in my work as a Native woman and scholar who is part of a Native community of scholars.

Andrea Smith misrepresents herself as Cherokee

On June 30, 2015 (two days before Betsy's review was posted), The Daily Beast ran a story about Andrea Smith, a key figure to many academics and activist who are committed to social justice, especially for women, and in particular, women of color. The focus of the article is Andrea Smith's identity. For years, she claimed to be Cherokee. She said she was Cherokee. But, she wasn't. She is amongst the millions of people who think that they have Cherokee ancestry. Some do, some don't.

I met Andy several years ago (most people know her as Andy). At the time, she said she was Cherokee. I had no reason not to believe her. I don't remember when I first heard that she might not be Cherokee, but I did learn (not sure when) that she had been asked by the Cherokee Nation to stop claiming that she is Cherokee. I don't know what she personally did after that, and she has not said anything (to my knowledge) since the story appeared in The Daily Beast.

Things being said about Andy, about being Cherokee, and about claims to being Cherokee, reminded me of David Arnold's Mosquitoland. There's so much ignorance about being Cherokee! That ignorance was front and center in Arnold's book. I'm deeply appreciative that he responded to my questions about it, and that he is talking with others about it, too. Those conversations are so important!

I view Andy's failure to address her claim to Cherokee identity as a dismissal of the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation. It is a dismissal of their nationhood and their right to determine who their citizens are. Andy knows what the stakes are for Native Nations, and for our sovereignty. She knows what she is doing.

Jeter was adamant about who she was. My guess is that she knew what the stakes were, for her personally, and for the Rappahannock who, as of this writing, are not yet federally recognized as a Native Nation.

From Ignorance to Knowing

Betsy doesn't have the knowledge that Andy has. Few people do. Betsy is listening, though, as evidenced by her response to me this morning (see her comment on July 3). I am grateful to her for that response. She has far more readers than I do, and our conversation there will increase what people know, overall.

In that response, Betsy notes that Alko probably didn't have the sources necessary to get it right. Let's say ok to that suggestion, but, let's also expect that the next printing of the book will get that part right, and let's hope that editors in other publishing houses are talking to each other about this particular book and that they won't be releasing books with that error.

That error may not matter to a non-Native child or her parents, but it matters to a Cherokee child and her parents. It matters to a Rappahannock child and her parents. It should matter to all of us, and it will (I say with optimism and perhaps naively, too), because we're having these conversations.

By having them, I hope (again, optimistically and perhaps, naively), that we'll move to a point in time when the majority of the American population will understands what it means to claim a Cherokee (or Native) identity, and a population that ceases to misrepresent Cherokee culture and history. In short, we'll have a population that is no longer ignorant about Cherokee people specifically, and Native people, broadly speaking. Children's books are part of getting us there. They carry a lot of weight.

For now, I'll hit upload on this post, post the link in a comment to Betsy's review, and respond (there) to other things Betsy said. I hope you'll follow along there.

__________

Further readings about Andrea Smith's claim to Cherokee identity:

• Rachel Dolezal and Andrea Smith: Integrity, Ethics, Accountability, Identity, by Joanne Barker, posted on June 30, 2015
• Four Words for Andrea Smith: 'I'm Not an Indian', by David Shorter, posted on July 1, 2015
• On the Politics of Distraction, by Joanne Barker, posted on July 2, 2015

THE CASE FOR LOVING by Selina Alko and Sean Qualls, but, what to do with what Jeter said about her identity?

Eds. note: See information about the second printing of the book, which was revised. 

New this year (2015) is The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage by Selina Alko. Illustrations are by Alko and her husband, Sean Qualls.

The author's note tells us that Alko is a "white Jewish woman from Canada" and that Qualls is an "African-American man from New Jersey."

The story of Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving resonated with Alko and Qualls. Their case went before the United States Supreme Court in 1967. Here's the synopsis posted at Scholastic's website:

For most children these days it would come as a great shock to know that before 1967, they could not marry a person of a race different from their own. That was the year that the Supreme Court issued its decision in Loving v. Virginia.

This is the story of one brave family: Mildred Loving, Richard Perry Loving, and their three children. It is the story of how Mildred and Richard fell in love, and got married in Washington, D.C. But when they moved back to their hometown in Virginia, they were arrested (in dramatic fashion) for violating that state's laws against interracial marriage. The Lovings refused to allow their children to get the message that their parents' love was wrong and so they fought the unfair law, taking their case all the way to the Supreme Court — and won!

The Loving case is of interest to me, too. We all ought to embrace its outcome. As the synopsis indicates, the story is about the love Jeter and Loving had for each other, and how, using the court system, laws against their desire to be married were struck down. We need to know that history. It is important. In her review in the New York Times, Katheryn Russell-Brown noted its strengths. She also said something I agree with:

Alko’s calm, fluid writing complements the simplicity of the Lovings’ wish — to be allowed to marry. Some of the wording, though, strikes a sour note. “Richard Loving was a good, caring man; he didn’t see differences,” she writes, suggesting, implausibly, that he did not notice Mildred’s race. After Mildred is identified as part black, part Cherokee, we are told that her race was less evident than her small size — that town folks mostly saw “how thin she was.” This language of colorblindness is at odds with a story about race. In fact, this story presents a wonderful chance to address the fact that noticing race is normal. It is treating people better or worse on the basis of that observation that is a problem.

As Russell-Brown noted, the "language of colorblindedness" doesn't work.  As a grad student in the 90s, I read research that found that the colorblind approach sent the opposite message to young children.

The Case for Loving also provides us with an opportunity to look at identity and claims to Native identity.

When I first learned that Alko and Qualls presented Mildred Jeter as part Cherokee (as shown in the image to the right), I started doing some research on her and the case. In some places I saw her described as Cherokee. In a few others, I saw her described as Cherokee and Rappahannock. That made me more intrigued! In the midst of that research, I also re-read Cynthia Leitich Smith's Rain Is Not My Indian Name and really appreciate--and recommend it--for lots of reasons, including how Smith wrote about Black Indians.

I continued my research on Jeter and found a particularly comprehensive source: That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans, and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia by Arica L. Coleman. It was published in 2013. Coleman's book has a chapter about Jeter.

Drawing from magazines, newspapers and court documents of that time and more recently, too, Coleman describes the twists and turns that impacted Mildred Jeter's identity. Most crucial to her chapter is information Jeter gave to her.

Jeter did not identify herself as Black. In an interview on July 14, 2004, she told Coleman (p. 153):

"I am not Black. I have no Black ancestry. I am Indian-Rappahannock." 

In The Case of Loving, we read about Mr. and Mrs. Loving going to Washington DC to get married, returning home to Virginia with their marriage license, and, being awoken late one night by the police who asked Richard what he was doing in bed with Jeter.

He pointed to their marriage certificate hanging on the wall.

The marriage certificate--an image of which is in Coleman's book--shows us columns for the male and female applying for the license. Here's the information in the female column:

Name: Mildred Delores Jeter
Color: Indian

She identified as Indian. In Central Point (that's the town they lived in), Coleman writes, there was a (page 161-162):

"racial hierarchy that granted social privileges to Whites, an honorary White privilege to Indians (i.e. access to White hospitals and the White only section of rail and street cars), and no social privilege to Blacks."

Isn't that fascinating? There's more. In 1870, Mildred's parents* the Jeter name was listed on census records as mulatto. By 1930, they* people with that name were identified as Negro. She was born in 1939. But, Coleman writes (p. 164):

The Jeter surname is also listed in the Rappahannock Tribe’s corporate charter (1974) as a tribal affiliate. Many claim, however, that the Jeters are descended from the Cherokee who allegedly began to intermarry with the Rappahannock during the late eighteenth century. According to one anonymous informant, “The situation regarding Indian identity in Caroline County is very complex. There was a time when many in the Rappahannock community believed that they were Cherokee because that was all they knew.” Neither Mildred nor her brother, Lewis Jeter, supported the claim that their father was Cherokee.

A 1997 article in the Free Lance-Star reports that she said she was Indian, with Portuguese and Black ancestry. In 2004 Coleman asked her about the Black ancestry, prefacing her question with a reference to the Rappahannock's historic association with Blacks, Jeter told Coleman that the Rappahannock's never had anything to do with Blacks.

That denial of Black ancestry is striking, particularly since the Supreme Court case was based on her being Black. If I understand Coleman's research, Jeter thought of herself as Indian when she married Loving. When their case went before the Supreme Court, she was regarded as Black. In the last years of her life, she said she was Indian. What was going on?

Her ACLU lawyers, Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, and Virginia's Assistant Attorney General, Robert McIlwaine--needed her to be Black. Her Indian identity had the potential to derail the arguments they were putting forth.

See, there was an act in Virginia called the "Racial Integrity Act" that was intended to preserve the purity of the White race. In early drafts of that act, white meant a person having only Caucasian blood. But that definition was replaced by the "Pocahontas Exception." The Racial Integrity Act was passed in 1924.

When I read "Pocahontas Exception" --- well, I think it fair to say that my eyebrows shot up and that I leaned towards the screen (reading an e-copy of the book)! What is THAT?!

The Pocahontas Exception allowed Whites to claim to be white, as long as they had no more than 1/16 of the blood of an American Indian.

Chief Justice Earl Warren was presiding over the Loving case. Presumably, he knew about her Indian identity and therefore asked about the Pocahontas Exception. I hope I am correct in my reading of Coleman's research when I say that Warren let it go when he heard McIlwaine's reply to his questions. The law, McIlwaine argued, did not apply to this case because Virginia had two populations of significance to its legislature: a bit over 79% were white and a bit over 20% were colored; therefore, the number of Native people (at less than 1%) was insignificant. Moreover (p. 170):

It is a matter of record, agreed to by all counsel during the course of this litigation and in the brief that one of the appellants here is a white person within the definition of the Virginia law, the other appellant is a colored person within the definition of Virginia law. 

Significant/insignificant are my word choices. McIlwaine didn't use them and neither did Coleman. They are words that resonate with Native people because research studies on race typically have an asterisk rather than data for us, because relative to other demographics, we are deemed too small to count. Indeed, a group of Native scholars have written a book about some of this, titled Beyond the Asterisk: Understanding Native Students in Higher Education. 

With intricate detail, Coleman documents how the news media was hit-or-miss in terms of what reporters said about Jeter's race. One day it was "negro" and the next--in the same paper--it was "half negro, half Indian" and then later on, it was back to "negro." In the final analysis, Coleman writes, writers generally describe her as an "ordinary Black woman" (p. 173).

In The Case for Loving, Alko uses "part African-American, part Cherokee" but I suspect Jeter's family would object to what Alko said. As the 2004 interview indicates, Mildred Jeter Loving considered herself to be Rappahannock. Her family identifies as Rappahannock and denies any Black heritage. This, Coleman writes, may be due to politics within the Rappahannock tribe. A1995 amendment to its articles of incorporation states that stated (p. 166):

“Applicants possessing any Negro blood will not be admitted to membership. Any member marrying into the Negro race will automatically be admonished from membership in the Tribe.”

I'm not impugning Jeter or her family. It seems to me Mildred Jeter Loving was caught in some of the ugliest racial politics in the country. As I read Coleman's chapter and turn to the rest of her book, I am unsettled by that racial politics. In the final pages of the chapter, Coleman writes (p. 175):

Of course, Mildred had a right to self-identify as she wished and to have that right respected by others. Nevertheless, viewed within the historical context of Virginia in general and Central Point in particular, ironically, “the couple that rocked courts” may have inadvertently had more in common with their opponents than they realized. Mildred’s Indian identity as inscribed on her marriage certificate and her marriage to Richard, a White man, appears to have been more of an endorsement of the tenets of racial purity rather than a validation of White/ Black intermarriage as many have supposed.

Turning back to The Case for Loving, I pick it up and read it again, mentally replacing Cherokee with Rappahannock and holding all this racial politics in my head. It makes a difference.

At this moment, I don't know what it means for this picture book. One could argue that it provides children with an important story about history, but I can also imagine children looking back on it as they grow up and thinking that they were misinformed--not deliberately--but by those twists and turns in racial politics in the United States of America.

Published in 2015 by Arthur A. Levine, I do not recommend The Case for Loving. 

~~~~~

Updates to add relevant items shared by others:

Kara Stewart pointed me to a news story from a Virginia TV station:
Doctor's quest to engineer a 'master race' in the early 1900s still hurting Virginia Indian tribes 

Kara's comment prompted me to search for information on the Racial Integrity Act. I found that the Library of Virginia has a page about it.


Update, March 18, 7:25 PM:
Just saying again---you must get a copy of Coleman's book. In other chapters, she talks about the Pocahontas Exception and how it was written to accommodate "the White elite who said they were descendants of the Indian princess Pocahontas and the English colonist John Rolfe." Here's one excerpt (p. 5):

It shall hereafter be unlawful for any white person in this State to marry any save a white person, or a person with no other admixture of blood than white and American Indian. For the purpose of this act, the term “white person” shall apply only to the person who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian; but persons who have one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no other non-Caucasic blood shall be deemed to be white persons. 

*Update, March 23, 12:05 PM:
Professor Coleman read my review and noted an error in what I said. I've used the cross-out option to indicate what is wrong and inserted the correct information. Mulatto/Negro were specific to the Jeter name, not to Mildred's Jeter's parents.

David Arnold's MOSQUITOLAND

A few days ago, I wrote about the ways that Amazon is using a snippet of School Library Journal's review of David Arnold's Mosquitoland, due out this year. 

In contrast, Barnes and Noble uses the entire review. The reviewer, Angie Manfredi, pointed to Arnold's use of lipstick as "warpaint" and noted that the protagonist is "part Cherokee."

Today (January 26, 2015), David Arnold tweeted the photograph to the right as part of a hashtag started by Gayle Forman. I take it to be his way of showing us his protagonist in her "warpaint."

Mr. Arnold? Did you imagine a Native reader of your book? Did it occur to you that this "warpaint" would be problematic?  I see that this is the person in the book trailer. In it, she is shown putting on this "warpaint." How did the particular "warpaint" design come about?!

The book trailer ends with "Mim Malone is not ok." What you have her doing is not ok either.

Update, 2:04 PM, January 26, 2015

A couple of people have written to tell me that the cover of the book shows the girl with the "warpaint." Here is a screen capture of the girl on the cover. Though the image is pixelated, you can see the "warpaint."

Someone else asked if I could elaborate on why this "warpaint" is problematic. The protagonist is, according to the review, part Cherokee. As a part Cherokee person, she applies "warpaint" to her face when she needs it to overcome something. It plays into stereotypical ideas of Indians "on the warpath." Frankly, I don't know any Native person--Cherokee or otherwise--who would use lipstick in this way, in this pattern, in this day and time, to overcome adversity. 

It suggests to me, that the protagonist is clueless about her Native identity. Is that part of the storyline? That she is ignorant about her Cherokee heritage? Does she, along the way, learn that what she is doing is goofy? Inappropriate? Stereotypical? 

Update, Tuesday Jan 27, 8:18 AM

Reaction to the "warpaint" from Cherokee librarians, writers, and parents:

• "Sigh. Just once I wish they would pick on someone else."  
• "Part Cherokee? Which part?" 
• "Slowly bangs head against desktop."

People who really are Cherokee are weary of their nation being used over and over and over and over and over, and misrepresented over and over and over and over... 

Update, Sunday April, 2015

AICL's full review of Mosquitoland includes Mr. Arnold's response.

AICL's Open Letter to Mr. Arnold includes another response from Mr. Arnold.