Sherman Alexie on THE SNOWY DAY

Editors Note on Feb 25, 2018: Please see my apology about promoting Alexie's work. --Debbie

~~~~

Earlier this year, in "I come to school for this class," I wrote about a terrific project in Arizona through which students at Westwood High School in Mesa, Arizona read literature by American Indian writers. The project was developed by James Blasingame and Simon Ortiz at Arizona State University.

I was pleased to see more about the project in "The Answer Sheet" --- a blog in the Education section of the Washington Post. Blasingame was their guest blogger. His wide ranging "An unusual introduction to Native American YA lit" touches on the writing of Joseph Bruchac and Sherman Alexie.

In his post, Jim points to one of his articles published in the Winter 2008 volume of The ALAN Review. Titled "From Wellpinit to Reardan: Sherman Alexie's Journey to the National Book Award, the article includes a lot of extensive quotes from Alexie. Here's one:

I have a vivid memory of when I was six years old and pulled The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats, off the shelf in the elementary school library. On the cover was a dark boy in a red coat out in the snow. I instantly figured he was Indian, he wasn't, but I thought he was. I connected to that main character almost instantly in a lot of ways.

Alexie won the National Book Award for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. There's a lot in the book that I really like because I connect with the character, the setting, the experiences...  It is real and brutally honest. In one sense, I find it a bit too real, and I wonder if it didn't need to be quite that way...  I'm thinking of his character's use of "faggot." I hear kids back home at Nambe toss that word around and I look at the young boys and wonder how that feels to those who may be gay?

Anyway, I am glad to learn that Alexie identified with the little boy in The Snowy Day and that he shared that memory with Jim. At the start of each semester, I ask students to bring in a book they remember. Tomorrow, I'll let them know about Alexie and his memory of The Snowy Day.

Michael Steele, "Honest Injun," and, "Injun" in children's books

When Harry Reid's remarks about Obama hit the news yesterday, Michael Steele (head of the Republican Party) said Reid ought to resign. When called out on his own language (Steele said "Honest Injun" on January 4), he said, at first, that he did not to apologize or step down from his own position. Now, he's issuing the classic "IF" I offended anyone..... (not)apology.

There's been a lot of spin about both men and what they said. With this post, I focus on the terms "Injun" and "Honest Injun."

Steel says his use of the phrase was not intended as a racial slur. I imagine a lot of people were surprised to learn that "injun" is derogatory.

Surprised, because, it is, after all, quite common. You can find "Injun" and "Honest Injun" in older books that are widely read today, like:

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - published in 1876, where "evil is embodied in the treacherous figure of Injun Joe," (p. x of the intro to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a Signet Classic book published in 2002) and in the oath used several times by characters.

Seems to me, in my cursory study of the phrase, that it may have been coined by Twain. In the entry on "Injun," the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists Twain as the first person to use "Injun." It also lists several other noted writers who used "Honest Injun." Some are George Bernard Shaw in 1896 and James Joyce (in Ulysses) in 1922.

And you can find "Injun" in new books, like The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly, published in 2009. It appears twice in Kelly's book, on page 135 and 251. In both instances, it is used as an oath. Here's the relevant excerpt on page 135?

"Double-Injun-blood-brothers-swear-to-die-promise?"

"Double Injun."

"It doesn't count unless you say the whole thing," he said.

"Saaaam."

"Okay, okay, okay. But say it, huh?"

"Double Injun blood brothers swear to die," I said. "Now leave me alone."

Kelly used it again on page 251:

She swore the deepest double-Injun-blood-brothers oath for me.

I have not read Kelly's book, so I have no idea what the two characters in the exchange are talking about. The novel is set in 1899 and the oath was in use by then. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is getting a lot of buzz this year. There's a lot of people hoping it'll get one of the top prizes (the Newberry Medal).

Given that attention, I hope that teachers are taking the opportunity to talk with students about that word, "Injun." I wonder if Steele's schoolteachers used Holling C. Holling's Paddle-to-the-Sea? Published in 1941, it was awarded a Caldecott Honor Medal. In Holling's book, a toy Indian in a toy canoe is put into the water. It makes its way downriver, and ends up in Lake Superior, where a fisherman catches it (page 23):

'Best catch in weeks!" one man was saying. 'And that's not all---look! we're even netting red Injuns in canoes!

I've also come across the word "Injun" in The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Classic Stories compiled by Barbara M. Walker, published in 1989. It includes a recipe for "Rye'N'Injun, a kind of bread. "Rye'N'Injun" appears several times in Farmer Boy, published in 1953.  Walker says that bread is known today as Boston Brown Bread. On page 86, she writes

"Its history reaches back to the first New England colonists, whose only grains were the rye they brought from Europe and the corn they got from the Indians (hence "injun" for cornmeal).

Was "Injun" a word for cornmeal? I don't know, and I'm not going to take time right now to find out...  Staying on point with "Injun"...

It's in Elizabeth George Speare's Calico Captive, and Lois Lenski's Indian Captiv, The Story of Mary Jemison.  I understand it being used in historical fiction. It was a phrase used in the past, but not today, and it'd be terrific if, when they come across it, teachers would point out that "Injun" is a derogatory word.

It's in Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys.  You can find it in Lynne Reid Banks's The Key to the Indian. But, did Benjamin Franklin use the phrase, "Honest Injun," as suggested by Augusta Stevenson in her biography, Benjamin Franklin: Young Printer? 

Another children's book author uses it...  Joseph Bruchac. In his The Heart of a Chief, you'll find him pushing back on the use of it and other words. His protagonist, Chris, and his friends are at a football game. His friend is Anthony, or Tony, or Pizza. Here's the excerpt (p. 55):

People are going crazy on our side of the field. A bunch of kids are doing the tomahawk chop while others are patting their hands against their mouths to do phony war whoops.

The cheerleaders are doing cartwheels. They hold up their pom-poms and sing out together, "TONY, TONY, HE'S OUR MAN. IF HE CAN'T DO IT, NO ONE CAN!"

Just as I realize they are talking about Pizza--Anthony is his given name, which no one at Penacook ever uses--the big man in the New England Patriots jersey stands up, "Scalp 'em, Injun, scalp 'em!" he bellows. Other people take up his chant.

"SCALP 'EM, INJUN, SCALP 'EM"

I realize for the first time what it is like to be excited and depressed all at once. I look at my friends and see the same look on their faces that must be on mine. Should we laugh or cry?

In his book, Bruchac calls attention to a lot of words and to the mascot issue. For that reason alone, I encourage teachers and librarians to get and use his book, especially right now, in the wake of William Michael Steele's remarks. You might also want to talk with students about Native response to Steele. See "GOP leader uses racist term" by Rob Capriccioso in Indian Country Today on January 12, 2010 and  "Michael Steele's 'honest injun' comment sparks backlash", in the Chicago Tribune on January 7, 2010.

Leitich Smith Interviews Bruchac

Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

On her blog Cynsations, Cynthia Leitich Smith regularly features interviews she does with writers. On Tuesday, she posted an interview with Joseph Bruchac. Click here to read it.

Joseph Bruchac's MARCH TOWARD THE THUNDER

Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

[Note: This review may not be published elsewhere without written permission from its author, Beverly Slapin. Copyright 2008 by Beverly Slapin. All rights reserved.]

Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki), March Toward the Thunder. Dial (2008), grades 5-up.

Between 1861 and 1865, during what has been labeled the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history, more than one million young men, foot soldiers who had enlisted or been drafted into the infantries of the Northern and Southern armies, were maimed or killed as they marched toward the thunder of each other’s artillery.

It’s the summer of 1864, and 15-year-old Louis Nolette, an Abenaki from Canada, is living in New York with his mother. Lured by the promise of good wages and a “fine, clean uniform,” and the North’s stated commitment to end slavery, Louis signs up with the 69^th New York Volunteers: the “Fighting 69^th,” the “Irish Brigade”—known for its courage and ferocity—marching from New York to Virginia.

An “eager boy going into battle,” what Louis finds out during this long summer is that war is not about heroes and villains: it’s about scared kids on both sides of the trenches, killing and dying for a “cause” that becomes further and further removed from their realities. “Aye,” Sergeant Flynn tells Louis, “war’s a dirty business and never ye forget that.”

A dirty business in more ways than one. Constant attacks by lice and fleas. The unavailability of water for bathing. And the slaughters on both sides that result from incompetent officers and generals whose political careers dictate their military judgments. “God save us from all generals,” Sergeant Flynn says.

March Toward the Thunder is not a blow-by-blow description of some of the major battles of the Civil War, though they are here: Cold Harbor, the Crater, the Bloody Angle, the Wilderness, Petersburg. It is not a roster of the famous names, though some make an appearance, too: Abe Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, and Seneca General Ely Parker. Rather, it is about the exhausted, homesick young people who do the fighting and whom readers will get to know and like—before almost all of them are killed.

Here are “Bad Luck” Bill O’Day and Kevin “Shaky” Wilson, the first to die:

O’Day’s head had been broken open like a melon by a spinning piece of shell. Nor was it likely that Shaky Wilson was still breathing. The last [Louis had] seen Wilson, he was leaning on a fallen tree and trying to hold in a red writhing mass spilling like snakes out of his belly.

Of the others who become friends—amidst “the confusion of gunshot and smoke, shots and screams and the sounds of men calling for water or their mothers”—few are left alive. And many of those others who might survive find parts of themselves left at the hospital tent, with the doctors’ sawbones-approach to medicine:

A grisly pile of arms and legs of men [who] would never shoulder a musket or march again to battle lay stacked four feet high behind the operating area. If and when there was a lull in the action, those lost limbs would be buried in the same earth where men were digging trenches.

In some places, compassion emerges from the bloody chaos. There are informal truces between Blue and Gray young men, who share the little they have. There’s a hushed, nighttime break together, where Louis is wished luck by a young Cherokee Reb whose cousin Louis has pulled to safety (“I do hope you don’t get kilt tomorrow,” he says). There’s the deep friendship that develops between Louis and a young Mohawk named Artis, who, in another war in another time and place, might have become deadly enemies. And there’s this: As Louis’ companions settle into their trenches for the night, they hear a familiar song floating from the enemy camp, “as sweet a version of ‘Amazing Grace’ as he’d ever heard… Then, up and down the line of trenches, Union men began to join in until at least a thousand voices and hearts of men in both blue and gray were lifted above the earthly battlefield by a song.”

Louis Nolette is based on Bruchac’s great-grandfather Louis Bowman, who served in the Irish Brigade in 1864-1865. He was gravely wounded and left for dead, surviving because Thunder came and he was able to drink from the rain pools. Here, Louis, his mother, his comrades,—and his “enemies”—are real people. Through them, middle readers will find no “good guys” or “bad guys,” no simplistic declaration of “mission accomplished.” Rather, with the assistance of a skilled teacher, they will be able to relate to the historical and contemporary issues of military recruitment and war.

Bruchac, who has recently become a grandfather, dedicates this book to “our grandchildren; may they live to see a world in which there is no war.” Through the eyes of a 15-year-old Indian boy become a man, he has crafted a profound statement against warfare. March Toward the Thunder should be required reading for every fifth- and six-grader in this country, for every youngster who is addicted to violent video games, and for every 18-year-old who is contemplating serving in this country’s armed forces.

—Beverly Slapin

________________

Note from Debbie: March Toward the Thunder is available from Oyate, a Native non-profit organization. You can always get a book cheaper at places like Amazon, but supporting Oyate means support of the work Oyate does for children. If you have a choice, order March Toward the Thunder from Oyate.

________________

Update, July 13, 6:45 AM---Here's Joseph Bruchac, singing a song he wrote, "Dare to Hope."

Beverly Slapin's review of Joseph Bruchac's BUFFALO SONG

Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

[Note: This review may not be published elsewhere without written permission of Beverly Slapin.]

____________________

Bruchac, Joseph, Buffalo Song, illustrated by Bill Farnsworth. Lee & Low, 2008, preschool-up

For millennia, the great buffalo herds provided material and spiritual sustenance for the Salish and other Indian peoples who inhabited much of North America. This sacred relationship was disrupted time and again, as the Salish were pushed west out of their hunting territories by the better-armed Plains nations, who themselves were pushed out by the eastern tribes, retreating from the expanding United States. As the government’s oppressive policies and overhunting by the encroaching whites combined with a series of epidemics and failing military and political alliances, the effects on the Salish and their beloved buffalo were particularly devastating.

By the 1870s, when Buffalo Song begins, the buffalo are once again scarce and in danger of disappearing. A young Nez Percé boy and his father rescue a buffalo calf whose entire herd has been slaughtered. They bring the little orphan to a Pend d’Oreille man named Sam Walking Coyote, who, with his family, are raising several other buffalo calves. Drawing in good part on oral interviews with Salish elders in the 1920s and ‘30s by the Montana Writers Project, Bruchac weaves together the stories of the boy and his father, the calf and his adopted family, and Walking Coyote and his family’s compassion and dedication that led to the establishment of the Pablo-Allard herd and the eventual restoration of the buffalo. In doing so, he fashions the events of a complex story into a satisfying and accessible picture book that will resonate on many levels with young children.

The preface to Buffalo Song is Bruchac’s recounting of a Salish story told in 1926 about the return of the buffalo. Weaving in and out of historical and mythological time, both the original tale and Bruchac’s reframing of it as a creation story mirror the great struggles for herd restoration from the nineteenth century up to and including the present. Together the two versions become, in fact, a re-creation story about the revitalization of the great herds and an honor song for what the Salish have done.

But few books are perfect. Unfortunately, Farnsworth’s oil-on-canvas paintings, on a palette of mostly greens and earth tones, do not match the literary level of Bruchac’s story. Except in several places, Farnsworth’s buffalo and horses exhibit a far greater range of color, motion and expression than do his Indians. Nevertheless, for all it is and all it says, Buffalo Song is highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

____________________

Buffalo Song is available from Oyate.

Interview with Joseph Bruchac

Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

I received an email from the Learning First Alliance. They recently posted an audio interview with Joseph Bruchac on the Public School Insight blog. I listened to the segment called "The Effect of Persistent Stereotypes of American Indians on Young Children" and recommend you listen to it.
.

Video interview: Joseph Bruchac

I no longer recommend work by Joseph Bruchac. For details, see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

Scholastic has a video interview of Joseph Bruchac. He's written some excellent books. Among those I hold in great regard is Hidden Roots.

In the video, he is asked what book he'd like to see made into a movie. His answer? Skeleton Man. I really like that book. When I got it, I read it aloud to my daughter. We were engrossed with it, stayed with it till we finished. It is terrific. It would make a great movie!

Bruchac is very important to the work that I do. Some years back, I wrote a chapter called "Native Americans in Children's Books of the Twentieth Century." It was published in Linda Pavonetti's book, Children's Literature Remembered: Issues, Trends, & Favorite Books. I opened that chapter with this paragraph:

If asked to name a Native American (or American Indian) author of children’s books, Joseph Bruchac, of the Abenaki tribe, is likely to be at the top of the list. Readers should note Bruchac’s tribe (Abenaki); Native Americans prefer to be identified by a specific tribe rather than Native American or American Indian when possible. Bruchac has written numerous children’s books about Native Americans. His work spans several genres: The Story of the Milky Way (Dial, 1995) is traditional literature, The Heart of a Chief (Dial, 1998) is contemporary realistic fiction, Arrow Over the Door (Dial, 1998) is historical fiction, Crazy Horse’s Vision (Lee & Low, 2000) is biography, and Bowman’s Store (Lee & Low, 2000) is his autobiography. What is not well known in the field of children’s literature is Bruchac’s role in mentoring aspiring Native authors. Indeed, he is recognized as the single most important force in the nation in publishing and promoting the work of emerging Native American writers (Lerner, 1996). Bruchac was instrumental in establishing the Returning the Gift festival in 1992. Held in Norman, Oklahoma, it was conceived as a gathering at which Native authors could share their work and talk with and/or mentor aspiring Native American authors. It evolved into an annual Returning the Gift festival and the formation of several organizations whose goals are to publish the work of Native authors and provide beginning authors with mentors. Native American authors who serve as mentors include Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo) whose Ceremony is widely used in high school classrooms, and Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur d’Alene). Also serving as a mentor is Gayle Ross (Cherokee), known for her picture book retellings of traditional literature and oral storytelling, and of course, Bruchac himself. In addition to the festival, Bruchac established the Greenfield Review Press, a small publishing house devoted to publication of Native authors. Without question, Bruchac has been significant, not only for his own writing, but also for his efforts to mentor and promote the work of other Native authors.

His books are in most libraries, and that is a good thing for all readers. There is a book, based on the gathering, called Returning the Gift: Poetry and Prose from the First North American Native Writers' Festival. In March, Michigan State University will host the next Returning the Gift Native Writers Conference. Click here for info.

And, click here to see the video interview of Joseph Bruchac.

Update: Jan 2, 2008, 3:45 PM---Eliza Dresang did an interview with Bruchac, archived on the CCBC site. To read it, click here.
.

THE STORY OF THE MILKY WAY: A CHEROKEE TALE by Bruchac, Ross, and Stroud

Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki? Because the story here is Cherokee and Ross (co-author) is Cherokee, I need to reflect on my recommendation of the book. 

When Ten Little Indians came out in 2004, Alexie did an interview with Wisconsin's Public Radio program "To the Best of our Knowledge." Click here to listen to it. Ten Little Indians is a terrific collection of short stories.

The segment also includes an interview with Gayle Ross. She's a storyteller and writer. I really like her books. One is The Story of the Milky Way: A Cherokee Tale, which she did with Joseph Bruchac. Illustrations for that book are by Virginia A. Stroud. The beauty and importance of this book begins with Stroud's "Illustrator's Note" and Bruchac and Ross's "The Origin of the Story," both of which precede the story. In these notes, readers learn how illustrators and writers can prepare their work in a way that conveys a fundamental respect for Native peoples, their histories, and their stories.

Equally important is what you see when you open the book and start reading the story:

See the family? They aren't in some fake tipi... They're in a living room, much like yours or mine, with a fireplace and a big comfy chair. This opening visually grounds the story and Native people in the present day.

The first line is "This is what the old people told me when I was a child." None of that "many moons ago" or "in the days of the ancients" kind of prose that too many non-Native writers use!

Note, too, that it is tribally specific, right up front in the title. It says "A Cherokee Tale."

The closing page returns to the present day, with the grandparent and two children outside looking up at the stars of the Milky Way.

This book is far better than Rodanas's Dragonfly's Tale, or Pollock's Turkey Girl. If you recently bought one of them, take it right back to the store and get your money back. Ask, instead, for The Story of the Milky Way. This is one you can count on.

Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

Joseph Bruchac's Wabi

[Note: This review used with permission of its author, Beverly Slapin, and may not be published elsewhere without Slapin's written permission. Wabi is available from Oyate. ]

Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki), Wabi. Dial, 2006. 198 pages, grades 5-up.

If you’ve been raised as an owl (even if you find out later that you’re also a human), there’s one thing you need to know: “If you don’t hop off the branch, you’ll never catch anything.” That’s what Wabi finds out from the wisdom of his great-grandmother, who is also a shape-changer. And hop off the branch Wabi does, into the adventure of his life.

As Wabi watches and listens to the people in the village below, he learns what it is to be human. But in his quest to find out who he is and where he belongs, his way of seeing the world remains delightfully ornithno-centric: “If you can hear the deliciously terrified heartbeat of a mouse hiding in the grass far below your treetop perch, it is not at all difficult to make out a human conversation within a nearby wigwam.”

Wabi is at first perplexed by the humans: their physical makeup, with fingers instead of talons and legs that bend forward instead of backward; their homes, built like upside-down nests; their eating habits that eschew “delicious-looking chipmunks” and “yummy and crunchy” baby crows; and their etiquette, which precludes the presenting of one’s beloved with a live rodent.

With Abenaki words sprinkled throughout the narrative and elements from traditional Abenaki tales—and the great Tao interpreter Chuang Tsu—seamlessly woven into the story, Wabi rescues a wolf cub who becomes his devoted companion, falls in love with a human girl, and engages in mortal combat with monsters intent on destroying their world. The sometimes gruesome encounters will resonate with middle readers, as will Wabi’s wry observations (“It is very easy to locate a large, bloodthirsty creature when it attempts to tear out your throat”).

Bruchac’s considerable talents shine through Wabi’s story; There’s not a single wasted scene in this expertly crafted thriller.—Beverly Slapin

.

Children's Books on Navajo Code Talkers

[This review essay used here with permission of its author, Beverly Slapin, and may not be published elsewhere without her written permission.]

----------------

The Navajo Code Talkers in Books for Young People

Aaseng, Nathan, Navajo Code Talkers, foreword by Roy O. Hawthorne (Diné). Walker (1992). 116 pages, b/w photos, grades 5-8

Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki), Code Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two. Dial (2005). 231 pages, grades 5-7

Hunter, Sara Hoagland, The Unbreakable Code, illustrated by Julia Miner. Rising Moon/Northland (1996). Unpaginated, color paintings, grades 3-5

Kawano, Kenji, Warriors: Navajo Code Talkers, foreword by Carl Gorman (Diné), photographs by the author. Northland (1990). 107 pages, b/w photographs, grades 6-up

Throughout World War II, Diné (Navajo) code talkers were a crucial part of the U.S. effort in the South Pacific, sending and receiving messages in an unbreakable code based on the Diné language. As Marines, they took part in every assault, from Guadalcanal in 1942 to Okinawa in 1945, experiencing some of the bloodiest fighting in the war.

For the Diné code talkers, the military experience of serving in World War II—mythologized as “the good fight”—was a chance for the young men to demonstrate their courage in the most exciting adventure of their lives. For many, it was the first time they had ever left their communities, the first time they had ever seen an ocean, the first time they had ever seen a paycheck. In the aftermath of that war and the post-traumatic shock that came with it, they found they were not allowed to discuss the top-secret nature of their work.

Although the code talkers probably saw themselves as “warriors,” referring to soldiers as “warriors” perpetuates a century-old hoax. There is a great cultural and philosophical distinction between the terms “warrior” and “soldier,” and somehow, for the Indian community, this distinction has been blurred, erased, “forgotten” and, most of all, exploited. Sacrificing their lives for the benefit of the U.S. war machine has become one of the only acceptable ways for young people today to demonstrate their courage. And the image of “warriors” protecting their lands, cultures and communities has young Indian people—in far greater proportion than anyone else—becoming cannon fodder for cynical colonialist ventures.

In the four books reviewed below—two fiction and two non-fiction—the term “Navajo” is used rather than “Diné,” the people’s self-name; this is especially noticeable in the The Unbreakable Code and Code Talker, where a grandfather talking to his grandchild(ren) would be more likely to refer to himself as “Diné” or “our people.” In all four, the extent of Japanese fatalities, including civilians, is soft-pedaled. Two (Navajo Code Talkers and Code Talker) mention the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and also discuss the legacy of the Navajo Long Walk and the Indian residential schools.

Warriors: Navajo Code Talkers

Through his long friendship with Diné elder and code talker Carl Gorman and his family, Japanese-born Kenji Kawano became the official photographer to the Navajo Code Talkers Association. Kawano’s beautiful book of historical and contemporary black-and-white photographs, coupled with the words and stories of the code talkers themselves, reflect this gifted photographer’s honoring of the people whose code baffled Japanese communicators and contributed to the World War II defeat of his own people. Here is Wilsie H. Bitsie, now an elder, telling Kenji Kawano, “Why did I kill? This has had great psychological bearing on me, and still does.” Both Gorman’s foreword and Kawano’s preface are personal and heartfelt, and Benis M. Frank’s introduction gives a historical overview from the Marine Corps perspective. Since the term “warriors” appears only in the title, one would suspect that it was a marketing decision. It was interesting to read the first-person accounts in Warriors and see how their various permutations showed up in the later-published books.

Navajo Code Talkers: America’s Secret Weapon in World War II

That Aaseng relied almost entirely on outdated and questionable-at-best sources by cultural outsiders—such as Reader’s Digest’s America’s Fascinating Indian Heritage and Scott O’Dell’s Sing Down the Moon—is reflected in his falsely authoritative and condescending writing. Especially egregious is the chapter describing how the alleged Diné belief system may have impacted the code talkers’ performance in the Pacific:

Navajos were taught not to kill snakes. Was that practical or even possible in some of the snake-infested hellholes the marines found themselves in? How would the Navajos react to a belegaana (sic) slashing a snake out of fear or simply for the fun of it? Navajos were taught never to eat a piece of food with the point of a knife stuck in it. Would this cause problems at mealtime? Navajos took care to avoid having beasts cross their paths and to stay away from any tree damaged by lightning. Would these traditional taboos clash with orders from a superior officer to take up a certain position?

Then there’s this garbled mess:

Not only did the Navajos sound like the Japanese to many marines, they also looked like them. There was no one “type” of Navajo that could be immediately recognized. Navajo men can display great differences in size, build, skin color, and facial appearance. They do, however, tend toward a number of characteristics that are more similar to the Japanese than to the belegaana (sic): dark hair, dark skin, sparse facial hair, high cheekbones, occasionally even Asian-appearing eyes.

What does this mean? I think Aaseng is probably trying to say something, but I get the feeling he’s describing a breed of horse. Actually, there were several cases in which Diné code talkers were almost killed by white Marines who mistook them for enemy infiltrators. These incidents occurred because of cultural blindness, not because Navajos and Japanese people look alike. Navajo Code Talkers is way not recommended.

The Unbreakable Code

Comforting his young grandson, distraught about having to move to Minnesota, a Diné grandfather recounts his own experiences away from home, both at an Indian boarding school and later, as a code talker: “All those years,” he remembers laughing with another young recruit, “they told us to forget Navajo, and now the government needs it to save the country!” When John excitedly asks his grandfather to tell him about the fighting, Grandfather appropriately responds, “What I saw is better left back there. I would not want to touch my home or my family with those pictures.” In this story about a close family relationship and ties to the land that tells you who you are forever, Hunter is to be forgiven for an occasional clunker (“‘You’re going to be all right,’ Grandfather said. ‘You have an unbreakable code.’”) and a somewhat contrived back-story. Miner’s softly textured oil paintings illustrate the warmth of grandfather and grandson together and the beauty of the land; and Hunter’s endnotes give young readers the original code and some code words to look at and pronounce.

Code Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two

How does one tell a historical story that is true to itself, while at the same time taking responsibility not to dredge up old prejudices for today’s young readers? This dilemma is one that I imagine Bruchac struggled with in researching and writing Code Talker.

Code Talker is essentially The Unbreakable Code expanded to a middle-reader chapter book. Here, Bruchac’s fictionalized narrator, Ned Begay, shares with his grandchildren the experience of the war and what came after. Bruchac deftly sets the story in the context of Diné history, including the forced Navajo Long Walk to Bosque Redondo and the Indian residential schools’ attempts to eradicate Native languages.

Well researched and relying on both published and oral accounts, Code Talker is related in an honest, realistic voice, one that does not hesitate to tell a funny story when the opportunity occurs: “I kept a straight face because it would have been rude to laugh at a grown-up, even a grown-up biligaana who had just said that all sheep above the age of six should be in school.” The irony of having the language beaten out of you as a child and then having that same language considered invaluable in the war effort is the focal point of the story. An overemphasis on cultural details with which Diné grandchildren would already be familiar seems to be for the benefit of the presumed audience of non-Native readers. It’s also problematic that Bruchac uses the term “warrior” interchangeably with “soldier.”

As Bruchac writes in his author’s note, all the events are real and almost all the characters are real. It’s a little unnerving, but not necessarily a bad thing, to see Carl Gorman (whom I’ve met) showing up as a young man in a historical novel. But although Diné elders share war stories with each other, it’s highly unlikely that a Diné grandfather would burden his grandchildren with the fear, pain, death and gory details of the war.

Another problem in Code Talker is Bruchac’s narrator’s demonization of the Japanese people. Although Ned Begay sometimes walks away from the racist remarks uttered by his fellow Marines and calls war “a sickness that must be cured…a time out of balance,” he also likens the Japanese people to “the monster beings in our old stories, (who) preferred to strike in the darkness” and tells his grandchildren that “[w]e must never forget, as the Japanese forgot, that all life is holy.” (Considering that U.S. forces incinerated hundreds of thousands of Japanese men, women, and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and on the Japanese-held islands in the Pacific, one might do well to ask, who else forgot that all life is holy?) And it is unfortunate that Bruchac chose to put into print the Diné code word for “Japan” as an ethnic slur that calls attention to the presumed shape of a people’s upper-eyelid folds.

For younger readers, The Unbreakable Code presents a part of history that will not be found elsewhere. For older readers, a thoughtful, critical teacher could use Code Talker paired with Warriors: Navajo Code Talkers, and lead her students in comparing the experiences of the code talkers with those of Indian young people serving in the military today. Why do Indian young people continue to go to war in far greater proportion than any other ethnic group? What other options do young people of color have to get access to education and jobs? In the context of war, colonialism and racism, what kind of philosophical and ideological mentality did the U.S. government create against the Japanese people? How is this kind of mentality fostered and demonstrated against Arab and Muslim peoples today?

Glorifying war under any circumstances is wrong; and the mutation of “warriors” into “soldiers,” “human beings” into “monsters,” and “friends” into “enemies” is an ongoing problem that needs to be addressed.

—Beverly Slapin

Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

A Review of Joseph Bruchac's Geronimo

[This review posted here with permission of its author, Beverly Slapin. It may not be published elsewhere without written permission from the author.]

------------------------------------------------------------

Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki), Geronimo. Scholastic Press, 2006; 360 pages, grades 5-up; Ndee (Apache)

It is 1908, more than twenty years after Geronimo’s final surrender to the White Eyes, and the grouchy, once-fearsome old man is looking for his hat. When his adopted grandson, whom he once called “Little Foot,” flicks his eyes up and then respectfully looks away, the old man discovers his hat—on his head.

As narrated by a younger Little Foot coming of age during the captivity years, the life of the man history has come to call “Geronimo” and the lives of the Ndee people who have come to be called “Apache” are rich with cultural and historical markers and a litany of broken promises. As Little Foot observes, “Lies from the mouths of the White Eyes seemed as certain as the sunrise each morning in the east. Even when they wrote their promises down on paper, they still did not keep them. Paper lies are even easier to burn.”

There is great good humor here too, as when Little Foot attempts to describe the thing called “cement” and as Nana opines in the humid Alabama weather, “Perhaps it would be better of us to sign a treaty with the mosquitoes. If they become our allies, together we can defeat all the White Eyes.”

Chronicling the years from 1886 to 1894, each short chapter begins with a historical third-person record that offers a counterpoint to Little Foot’s narrative and grounds it in the history of the times. Through Little Foot’s interpretation, middle readers will come to know the great spiritual leader as a man who loved his wives and many children, had an infectious sense of humor, and was an astute businessman besides.

Geronimo is a story of resistance and survival, courage and sacrifice, and, above all, the fight to maintain land, culture and community. Told from the perspective of the people themselves—with a refreshing absence of words such as “renegades” and “raiders”—Bruchac’s work is an antidote to the many toxic volumes, fiction and so-called non-fiction, that portray Geronimo and his people as savages.—Beverly Slapin

Joseph Bruchac's HIDDEN ROOTS

Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

[Note: This review is by Beverly Slapin of Oyate. I am grateful to her for sending me her reviews. Early in my graduate work, I read Through Indian Eyes: The Native Perspective in Books for Children, edited by Slapin and Seale. It marked an important moment in my work. In the field of children's literature, it is a touchstone, and its sequel A Broken Flute: The Native Perspective in Books for Children is equally important. As is clear to regular readers of my blog, I link to Oyate often, suggesting you order books like Hidden Roots from there. I would not do that if Oyate was a for-profit bookseller. Oyate is a not-for-profit organization that is doing very important and necessary work on a shoestring. ---Debbie]

______________________________________

Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki), Hidden Roots. Scholastic Press, 2004. 136 pages, grades 5-up

Living with his family in a tiny town in upstate New York, 11-year-old Sonny is surrounded by secrets. His parents live in solitude, and so does he. Questions are forbidden, and silence is enforced by his father, who explodes into violence without warning. His only friend is Uncle Louis, who comes around mostly after Sonny’s father has left for work. The old man is tied to the land in ways that Sonny is just beginning to know. As they walk in the woods together, make camp and do a lot of listening, Uncle Louis shows Sonny the relationship among all things. “Is it all right, us praying like Indians that way?” Sonny asks. “Long as no one sees us,” Louis answers.

Taking place in the early 1960s, Hidden Roots is rooted in the Vermont Eugenics Program that began some thirty years before and left the Abenaki people, for generations, “hiding in plain sight.”

Slowly, Sonny begins to understand how a Jewish librarian’s parents’ secret saved her life and how Indians had to pretend they weren’t Indian: “Sometimes people jes have to do the hardest things for their children,” Louis says. The hardest things, such as giving your children away so they can survive.

When Louis can no longer contribute to the silence and shame, Sonny begins to understand the “whys” of having to leave your home in the middle of the night, having secrets hanging heavily in the air, having to keep your head down and not bring attention to yourself, having to watch your father’s self-hatred turn to violence, having been told your grandfather is your “uncle” because he still lives in the Indian way. And Sonny begins to come to know that roots—even hidden roots—run deep.

Hidden Roots is for all those Indian families whose lives were interrupted by the eugenicists and for all the elderly mothers who still whisper to their adult daughters, “You better get your hair cut, or everybody’ll know you’re an Indian.” For all those who see their lives in this story, and for all those who never knew and now bear the responsibility to bring about change.

In a poem called “Rez Kid” (in Above the Line, West End Press, 2003), Joe Bruchac writes,

…hidden roots still give you strength.

There will always be another day.

The wind will always remember our name.

No matter how many roads they build,

the earth under our feet is our mother.

Joe Bruchac has written an honest, truth-telling story that may well be the most important book this prolific writer has ever produced. Thank you, Joe. You have done a good thing.

—Beverly Slapin

American Indian Library Association’s “American Indian Youth Literature Award”

For many years, individuals with the American Indian Library Association have worked toward establishing an award for outstanding children’s books about American Indians. Yesterday (September 5, 2006), they announced the first three recipients of the award.

Here is the portion of their press release with details about the books:

---------------------------------------------------

"Beaver Steals Fire: A Salish Coyote Story," by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, illustrated by Sam Sandoval, and published by the University of Nebraska Press is the winner for the picture book category. Accompanied by rich watercolor illustrations, the text relates a culturally vital tale from the Salish people of Montana about the significance of the gift of fire and how it should be respected.

Louise Erdrich is the winner of the middle-school award for "The Birchbark House," published by Hyperion Books for Children. Setting her book in the middle 19th century, Erdrich paints a detailed portrait of Ojibwa life through the experiences of 7-year-old Omakayas who lives on the Island of the Golden Breasted Woodpecker on Lake Superior. "The Birchbark House" was Erdrich's first novel for young readers, and the first book she has illustrated. She is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwa and lives with her two daughters in Minnesota.

Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

The young adult award is "Hidden Roots," written by Joseph Bruchac and published by Scholastic Press. The book is set within the historical framework of the Vermont Eugenics Program, a Native American sterilization program in the 1930s, and tells the story of the haunting effects of this shameful and tragic deed on one of the Abenaki families victimized by it. Author of more than 70 books for adults and children, Bruchac is of Abenaki ancestry and is a nationally recognized professional storyteller living in Greenfield Center, New York.

-----------------------------------------------------

Thank you, AILA, for establishing this award. Awards do a lot for the longevity of a book. As demonstrated on this blog, and by people who've done this work for many decades, some pretty awful books get printed again and again. They’re hard to displace, but I am hopeful that awards like this one will help change that. We must not forget, though, that the bottom line is sales. All three books are available from Oyate.

If we don’t buy these books for ourselves, for our children, for their friends, for their teachers, they will go out of print, even if they are designated as award winners.