Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry came out in 2002. In 2005, Gooney Bird and the Room Mother came out and there are a few more Gooney Bird books since then. Of course, Lowry has written many books -- several of which have won major book awards.
Published by Houghton Mifflin in 2005, I'm disappointed that nobody involved in the creation of Gooney Bird and the Room Mother noted the problems I see. And, I'm disappointed in the starred review from Kirkus. Their reviewer described it as a "winning, tongue-in-cheek outing." School Library Journal said the illustrations highlight key moments in the story, but four of the 10 illustrations show kids stereotypically dressed up as Pilgrims and Indians. Why didn't they note that problem?
I didn't know about the Gooney Bird books until recently when a reader wrote to ask me about Gooney Bird and the Room Mother. Here's the description:
Gooney Bird Greene likes to be right smack in the middle of everything. That's why she wants to have the lead role of Squanto in her class Thanksgiving pageant. But that role will go to whoever finds someone to be the room mother. All the parents are so busy, no one can bring cupcakes to the play. Gooney Bird Greene to the rescue! She finds a room mother alright, but promises not to tell who it is until the day of the play. Now the kids are really busy getting ready for the show. But will the mystery room mother really show up?
Thanksgiving events in schools are disturbing because they introduce (or affirm) a feel-good story that glosses the truth of what happened. Reading reviews at Goodreads, I see two that note the problems I saw. Walton says that "History is totally whitewashed in appalling ways." Cindy says that she was uncomfortable with the dressing up part and that the book went from uncomfortable to "downright inappropriate" in its depiction of Squanto as a "very, very helpful guy." She notes that the book briefly references the fact that Squanto was forcibly taken to Spain and sold as a slave but that the general narrative of him is about choices he made to go here and there. Surely Houghton Mifflin could make sure their staff includes people like Walton and Cindy who could help the publishing house and the author, too, step away from feel-good stories that mis-educate children.
Without hesitation, I am giving it a 'Not Recommended' label:
Several years ago I wrote an article for Journal of Language and Literacy Education. In it I analyzed Anne Rockwell's Thanksgiving Day and did a lot of historical research about Thanksgiving that I am using as I read through Lowry's book. Below, description is in plain text and my comments are in italics:
In chapter 2, Gooney Bird tells her teacher, Mrs. Pidgeon, that she wants to color Squanto's feather on the mural the class is working on. On page 10, we read that she's coloring one of his feathers blue. On page 13, she's coloring one red.
Debbie's comments: Did the man commonly known as Squanto wear feathers? And if he did, what did they look like? Did he wear them all the time? Were some red and some blue? The man's name was Tisquantum, not Squanto. His correct name has been known for so long. Why do children's books continue to use Squanto?
In chapter 4, the teacher tells them the mural is coming along well and that they also have to learn a song, make costumes, and select a cast of characters for the pageant. They need Pilgrims and Native Americans. Gooney Bird wants to be Squanto. Children have begun working on their costumes, as shown by the illustration of them singing the song:
Debbie's comments: That illustration with kids in those hats and headbands appears four times in the book. I see that in many children's books and in many photos teachers share of their own classroom activities around the holiday. Lowry's book joins the pile of educationally bad children's books that get circulated in society. It miseducates every child who learns this is ok.
The pageant would be more educational if it was tribally specific. By that, I mean that instructional materials about the Pilgrims need to use the name of the tribal nation--Wampanoag--rather than generic labels like Native American. I'd also want to see more facts than are likely to be included in pageants. However, my guess is once the facts are included, any "fun" in a pageant disappears. If a fuller understanding leads teachers to reject books like this one, or to stop doing these activities, that's a huge plus for children they teach!
Here's the song lyrics, sung to the tune of Jingle Bells:
Succotash, succotash, lima beans and corn. Thank you, noble Squanto, you may set the platter down.
Debbie's comments: I think the idea is to show gratitude to Native peoples -- Tisquantum in particular -- for help in learning how to plant and grow vegetables but why is he characterized as noble?
On page 32 the class works on their costumes. Their teacher tells them that the Pilgrims didn't decorate their clothing but Native Americans did. Students making headbands glue beads onto them and will also add a feather. Chelsea says "I wish I could be a Native American" because she hates her plain Pilgrim hat. There's a conversation about Pilgrims being brave, crossing the ocean.
Debbie's comments: This pervasive activity -- Native people in feathered headbands and Pilgrims in hats with buckles is inaccurate. The idea that Pilgrims wore black and white clothing and buckles on their hats and shoes is not accurate. The Mayflower History page (and other sources, too), tell us that is a stereotype.
Many people in the US wish they could be Native. They may have a romantic idea of what it means but that idea is often missing the difficulties Native people endured and endure as we fight for our rights, homelands, religious sites, return of artifacts and so on. There's a growing body of writing about people who go from wishing to claiming a Native identity. I've been compiling a log that you may want to visit.
On page 34, Mrs. Pidgeon asks Gooney Bird if she has been working on Squanto's dance. On the piano she plays some low notes in a repetitive way and tells Gooney Bird to pretend it is a drumbeat that Squanto should keep time to, and maybe doing some "rhythmic foot-hopping, too."
Debbie's comments: I can almost hear (in my imagination) the low notes Mrs. Pidgeon is playing. They're the sort of thing you hear in so many movies and TV shows and on sports fields where the team has a stereotypical mascot. It is kind of a BOOM boom boom boom, BOOM boom boom boom in a minor tone. If you listen to Native music done by Native drummers, do you hear that sort of thing? I don't. Take a few minutes to watch this video from the Museum of Indian Culture in New Mexico. In it, you will see how pueblo drums are made. There's a segment where a group of children is playing the drums they've made, and in the background of some of the narration, you can hear drumming. Music across Native Nations is different, of course, and I don't know all of it but I don't hear it in pow wow drumming or any other ceremonies of other nations that I've been to. I'll look for an example of Wampanoag drumming and add it when I find one.
In chapter 6 on page 36, Gooney Bird is wearing a hat with a feather in it. Mrs. Pidgeon asks why she doesn't have a headband. Here's their conversation:
"I decided Squanto should have a better hat than the other Native Americans, because he's been to England, remember?"
"Well, yes, he did travel there. But that's a top hat, Gooney Bird. Something an ambassador might wear. I don't think---"
"I think Squanto brought it back from England. He probably went shopping and bought a lot of new clothes there. People always buy new clothes when they travel."
Debbie's comments: Yikes! Granted, the character is a little girl but that character was created by an adult and looked over by editors at the publishing house... it is disappointing that nobody hit the pause button on the idea of Tisquantum shopping in England as if he is a modern day tourist!
On page 38, Gooney Bird began testing some dance steps and says that she thinks Squanto probably learned the tango in England.
Debbie's comments: Again, how did this get by editors?! I'd have flagged the idea of a kidnapped individual learning the tango (as if he is a modern day tourist) as being ridiculous but I'd also have looked up the tango. When was it invented? The answer: in the 18th century. When was Tisquantum there? Centuries before that!
Beyond that, it is important to know that Native dance is not performance or entertainment. Much of it is associated with a spiritual or religious ceremony. Teachers would not reenact something they see in a church or temple or place of worship... and it should not happen with Native dance either. Far too many writers misrepresent it in books they write.
Near the end of chapter 8, Mrs. Pidgeon worries that the costumes and song are slapdash and ill-fitting. The students tell her all the things they've learned in her classroom and she cheers up and says:
"I'm sorry that I was depressed for a minute. It's just that the story of the first Thanksgiving is such a truly wonderful story, about becoming friends, and helping one another, and being thankful. I wish I could have presented it better, instead of writing a dumb song about succotash."
Debbie's comments: These pageants are not a wonderful story! Especially for Native children. Native parents have been asking teachers to reconsider them for decades.
Gooney Bird has an idea. The day of the pageant, their presentation opens with Gooney Bird as Squanto, entering the multipurpose room with a dance that is "a combination of shuffles, taps, and twirls, with an occasional pause for a hop" done to Mrs. Pidgeon playing rhythmic drumming sort of music on the piano. At the front of the room, she says:
I am not the actual Squanto. The real Squanto was a Patuxet Indian who was born in a village near where the Pilgrims would land, but when he was born they hadn't landed yet.
He learned to speak English from some early settlers. He helped them in many ways. He was a very helpful guy.
When some of them went back to England, they invited him to go along. His mother didn't want him to.
But he went anyway. This was way back in the 1600s. Squanto is dead now. I am not the real Squanto. I am an imitation.
Debbie's comments: See notes above regarding Native dance and rhythmic drumming. Regarding Tisquantum speaking English: none of my sources say he learned it from early settlers. He learned it when he was kidnapped and taken to England. They didn't "invite" him to go along. Later in her remarks, Gooney Bird says he was taken captive, but why didn't Lowry or her editors remove the invitation part here? And where did that bit about what his mother wanted come from? I've never seen that before but I can imagine teachers raising that part and asking "would your mom want you to go so far away." It makes me deeply uncomfortable. He wasn't a child when taken. Does that passage invite children to think of him as a child?
She asks the principal to tell the audience what imitation means (she said "I am not the real Squanto. I am an imitation.") and then continues:
He traveled around for a while, being helpful because he was a helpful guy. He was an interpreter between the Americans and the Indians.
Debbie's comments: "He traveled around the world" and "being helpful" invoke an image that does not reflect the truth. I urge teachers to read Chris Newell's If You Lived During the Plimoth Thanksgiving. Get a classroom set of the book and use it to critique Gooney Bird's remarks! Develop a lesson plan on how to critically analyze the ways the Thanksgiving story is presented! In his book, Newell tells us that Tisquantum and 20 other Patuxet Wampanoag people and seven Nausets were kidnapped by Thomas Hunt who took them to Spain to sell them as enslaved people.
She asks a classmate to explain the word interpreter and then continues:
But suddenly--a bad ship captain tricked him into going onto his ship. It was a big scam. They made him a captive and took him to Spain. The captives all were sold as slaves. It made Squanto pretty mad.
But he was indefatigable.
After a long time Squanto finally made his way home. He had been away for years. And when he finally got home, he found that his village was gone. His people had all died. He was the last of his tribe.
It was very sad. But he became friends with the great chief Massasoit, and after a while he met the Pilgrims, who had just arrived. So he had some new friends and they hung out together.
The Pilgrims' lives in America would have been a fiasco if good Indians like Squanto had not helped them.
Squanto had gotten lots of new clothes in England, and he had learned to dance.
The End.
Gooney Bird bowed, twirled in a circle, did a bit of hula, and then said:
"All of my story was absolutely true, except maybe the part about learning to dance, but I think he probably did."
Debbie's comments: "He traveled around the world" and "being helpful" invoke an image that does not reflect the truth. I urge teachers to read Chris Newell's If You Lived During the Plimoth Thanksgiving. Get a classroom set of the book and use it to critique Gooney Bird's remarks! Develop a lesson plan on how to critically analyze the ways the Thanksgiving story is presented!
Gooney Bird tells children some truth but overall there is a silver-lining way to her remarks. "It was very sad" is immediately displaced by "But he became friends..." And then "... new friends" and "hung out together" and "new clothes" and "learned to dance" -- all of that softens the truth. And note the "good Indians" characterization, too. It implies there's bad Indians. Who were they, and what did they do that readers are meant to think of as "bad"?
