Not Recommended: THE QUEST FOR Z: THE TRUE STORY OF EXPLORER PERCY FAWCETT AND A LOST CITY IN THE AMAZON BY GREG PIZZOLI

Red x is mine, a visual signal that
I do not recommend this book

Back in July, I wrote (a little) about Greg Pizzoli's The Quest for Z: The True Story of Explorer Percy Fawcett and a Lost City in the Amazon. 

Published in 2017 by Viking/Penguin, I disagree with the starred and positive reviews it is getting from mainstream journals.

See that red x over the cover of the book? For some time now, I've been using that red x to provide people with a visual signal that I do not recommend a particular book. You've heard that "a picture is worth 1000 words." My red x conveys a great deal.

A picture is, indeed, worth a thousand words. Below, you'll see that Pizzoli created an image of one of Fawcett's crewman, dead, with 42 arrows in his body. A few pages prior to that image in The Quest for Z, we read that Fawcett had planned for encounters with "hostile" tribes.

A few days ago, I was talking with Dr. Thomas Crisp about that image in Pizzoli's book. He told me about a scene in the recently released movie, Ghost Story. It depicts a pioneer family, dead, with arrows in them.

Update, on Nov 10, 2017:
I saw the trailer for a new western. Titled "Hostiles" here's a screen cap from the opening scene:

Whether in a picture book for children or a feature film for adults, images of someone with arrows in them tells us a lot. It creates and affirms a strong sense of "good guys" and "bad guys."

That image -- this book -- leave me with many questions. Why did Pizzoli create this book? Why did the publisher think it ought to be published? Does anyone, anywhere, need this book?

What I mean with those questions is this: all of us (adults and children) need books that accurately depict Indigenous peoples of the past and present. Pizzoli's book affirms enduring stereotypes.

****

Here's the description for The Quest For Z:

British explorer Percy Fawcett believed that hidden deep within the Amazon rainforest was an ancient city, lost for the ages. Most people didn’t even believe this city existed. But if Fawcett could find it, he would be rich and famous forever. This is the true story of one man’s thrilling, dangerous journey into the jungle, and what he found on his quest for the lost city of Z.

Pizzoli's biography of Fawcett starts on page 5 with a legend of an ancient city in Brazil that had been "forgotten." He tells us that "no one" knew where it was. That centers the story--and the reader, too--in a British point of view. The British didn't know where that city was. 

Let's assume there was, in fact, a city. If you centered the story in an Indigenous point of view, would we be reading "no one" knew where it was? I doubt it. For various reasons, Indigenous people who knew where it was might withhold its location from the likes of Fawcett. By the time Fawcett was traipsing about, the Indigenous people of South America had been fighting Brits for literally, hundreds of years. British expeditions were all over South America, looking for riches and enslaving Indigenous people to work on plantations and in mines. My point: British people didn't know where it was; saying "nobody" means that the only people who count, in this book, are British. 

An aside... 
In chapter 20 of Exploration Fawcett, I read Fawcett's descriptions of many different Indigenous people, some that he calls "wild people" (p. 324) or cannibals, and others that he thinks are highly intelligent and skilled. That chapter also has information about Fawcett choosing to call that city he was looking for, "Z" (p. 332-333):

"On many occasions the early explorers of the interior reported glimpses caught here and there of clothed natives of European appearance. They were glimpses only, for the people had an almost uncanny knack of disappearing. These reports have not so far been substantiated, but they cannot be airily dismissed. Our destination on the next expedition—I call it ‘Z’ for the sake of convenience—is a city reputed to be inhabited, possibly by some of these timid people, and when we return the question may finally be settled."

What interested me about that passage, is the idea that a magnificent ancient city was (is?) being spoken of as if Europeans had something to do with it. I see that sort of thing from time to time, in writings where someone says that Indigenous people weren't smart enough to do this or that. Sometimes a theory is put forth that aliens helped them, or Europeans.  

The next pages in The Quest for Z tell us that every since he was little, Fawcett had dreams of traveling the world and exploring new places. On page 6, we see an illustration of him as a baby, holding a globe. On page 7, there's this one, too, showing him as a little boy, a teenager, and then as an adult: 

Overall, he looks harmless. Some might even say he looks endearing. You're supposed to see him that way. You're supposed to cheer for him. You're supposed to like him. You're supposed to want to go on his adventures with him. 

Percy Fawcett's first trip to South America was in 1906. When preparing for that trip, Pizzoli tells us that Fawcett took "gifts for any potentially hostile tribes he might encounter" (p. 12).

That's all we get. Tribes who might be hostile.

Why, though, might they feel unfriendly to Europeans? Do children who are reading this book have the knowledge they need to process why Indigenous people are being characterized as "hostile"? Pizzoli does nothing to tell children (or adults) why they might be hostile. If a book like this is going to be done, I think it is important to contextualize things like that. Leaving them simply as "hostile tribes" affirms and feeds ignorance.

A few pages later, Pizzoli tells us about an expedition down the Rio Negro. The river got rough, so they had to get out of the water and carry their canoes through the forest to find safer waters. One of the crew went off to look for a route they could go on and didn't return. They found him, dead, "with forty-two arrows in his body" (p. 19).

We aren't told who shot those 42 arrows, but we know who it was. Someone from those hostile tribes. We're supposed to feel bad for that fellow, there, with those arrows in him. Count them if you wish; Pizzoli made sure there are 42. Because this whole story is being told to us from a British (White) point of view, we're meant to see that man as courageous as he tried to find a better route. The account of his death is in the Exploration Fawcett, too. In it, Fawcett writes that the river was "infested" by "the dreaded Pascaguara Indians" (p. 115). Infested? Again, I wondered why this picture book for children was written. Fawcett was clearly racist but in Pizzoli's book, none of that comes through. We get lots of images of Fawcett as a jolly and courageous fellow.

Turning the page, we learn that on another of his trips, Fawcett was warned to stay away from a certain area because "the natives who lived there would attack outsiders" (p. 20). The use of "outsiders" is the closest we get to a reason why the Native peoples there would respond as they did but I think it is far from sufficient. We already know that Fawcett is not one to turn away from danger. He goes on, despite the warnings.

Soon, poison-tipped arrows fell from the sky.

Fawcett and his crew were surrounded. He gave a bizarre order.

The order? He told his crew to sing.

They sang British songs. One guy played an accordion.

It worked.

The arrows stopped, and, "the two groups parted as friends."


That account--about singing--is in the "Good Savage" chapter of Exploration Fawcett. Again, I wonder why this book was written, published, and why it is getting such rave reviews?

What we have, in Pizzoli's book, is this:

• hostile tribes
• a British man killed by some of those hostile tribespeople
• natives who would attack outsiders but who were won over by British music. 

Readers are not shown any of the Indigenous peoples in the places Percy Fawcett went. Instead, we have words about them, and illustrations of their poison-tipped arrows in and all around British men. In short, we have biased and stereotypical content.

The "hostile tribes" in The Quest for Z are a stereotype. They are the Indians who attack, apparently without provocation or reason. We're meant to understand them as savages. But were they? In fact, they were attacking outsiders because those outsiders had been taking family members into slavery.  Let's be real about what was going on! They were fighting to protect their moms. Their kids. Their dads, grandparents, and their siblings. Some of those "hostile" Indians are simple minded, lulled out of their aggression by British song.

I noted above that I read Fawcett's writings as I reviewed Pizzoli's picture book. In the chapter titled River of Evil, Fawcett wrote about how construction of a railroad had driven Indigenous people from their homelands in Madeira. He shares a story told to him by a "half-caste" who described finding two Indigenous people who went on a hunger strike to protest what was happening. One died, but the other? "We strung him up to a tree by the heels and had a little rifle practice on him. He died at the eight shot. It was great fun!" (p. 123).

During those trips, Fawcett continued to hear about that lost city. In April of 1925, he set out to find it. Newspapers carried reports of his progress. In his last report, he wrote that he expected to find the city in August.  But that was, in fact, his last report. He didn't return. Since then, Pizzoli tells readers in the final pages of his book, many treasure hunters, fame seekers, and movie stars have tried to find out what happened to him. As many as a hundred of them have gone missing, too.

On the last page (p. 40), Pizzoli tells us that Fawcett is famous--not for his success--but for his failure. His "amazing adventures" and his "unparalleled passion" give him a place in history. With his book, Pizzoli adds to this racist man having a place in history. But with this book, Pizzoli also adds to, and affirms, stereotypes of Indigenous people. He's made colonialism a good thing. It was not.  

So--again--why did this book get published? What does it offer?  

Obviously, I do not recommend Greg Pizzoli's The True Story of Explorer Percy Fawcett and a Lost City in the Amazon. In the first paragraph of his Author's Note, Pizzoli writes that, as he worked on this biography, he felt like he had lost his way, but he kept on working on this book because, he writes in the fourth paragraph, "we all hunt for unknowable answers, and dream of places where the problems of our lives will dissolve away." He's right. Many of us do that, but I wish Pizzoli had set the manuscript aside--or that he'd written it in a way that was critical of racism, stereotypical ideas, and colonialism. He didn't do that, though, and so--we've got another book for children that denigrates Native peoples. This vicious cycle, continues, and we're all the worse for it. 

Still Not Recommended: THE SECRET PROJECT by Jonah and Jeanette Winter

Some conversations about my review of Jonah and Jeanette Winter's The Secret Project suggest that I didn't say enough, back in March. I'm back, therefore, to say more. Some of what I wrote in March is being interpreted as innuendo and destructive. In saying more, this review is much longer. I anticipate that some who read it will continue with the "nit picking" charge that has already been leveled. 

Some people read my reviews and think I'm being too picky because I focus on seemingly little or insignificant aspect of a book. The things I pointed out in March were not noted in the starred reviews by the major review journals, but the things I pointed out have incensed people who, apparently, fear that my review will persuade the Caldecott Award Committee that The Secret Project does not merit its award. 

In fact, we'll never know if my review is even discussed by the committee. Their deliberations are confidential. The things I point out matter to me, and they should matter to anyone who is committed to accuracy and inclusivity in any children's books--whether they win awards or not. 

****

The Secret Project, by Jonah and Jeanette Winter, was published in February of 2017 by Simon and Schuster. It is a picture book about the making of the atomic bomb. 

I'm reading and reviewing the book as a Pueblo Indian woman, mother, scholar, and educator who focuses on the ways that Native peoples are depicted in children's and young adult books. 

I spent (and spend) a lot of time in Los Alamos and that area. My tribal nation is Nambé which is located about 30 miles from Los Alamos, which is the setting for The Secret Project. My dad worked in Los Alamos. A sister still does. The first library card I got was from Mesa Public Library. 

Near Los Alamos is Bandelier National Park. It, Chaco Canyon, and Mesa Verde are well known places. There are many sites like them that are less well known. They're all through the southwest. Some are marked, others are not. For a long time, people who wrote about those places said that the Anasazi people lived there, and that they had mysteriously disappeared. Today, what Pueblo people have known for centuries is accepted by others: present-day Pueblo people are descendants of those who once lived there. We didn't disappear. 

What I shared above is what I bring to my reading and review of The Secret Project. Though I'm going to point to several things I see as errors of fact or bias, my greatest concern is the pages about kachina dolls and the depiction of what is now northern New Mexico as a place where "nobody" lived.

"In the beginning"

Here is the first page in The Secret Project:

The words are:  

In the beginning, there was just a peaceful desert mountain landscape, 

The illustration shows a vast and empty space and suggests that pretty much nothing was there. When I see that sort of thing in a children's book, I notice it because it plays into the idea that this continent was big and had plenty of land and resources--for the taking. In fact, it belonged (and some of it still belongs) to Indigenous peoples and our respective Native Nations.

"In the beginning" works for some people. It doesn't work for me because a lot of children's books depict an emptyness that suggests land that is there for the taking, land that wasn't being used in the ways Europeans, and later, US citizens, would use it.

I used the word "erase" in my first review. That word makes a lot of people angry. It implies a deliberate decision to remove something that was there before. Later in the book, Jonah Winter's text refers to Hopi people who had been making kachina dolls "for centuries." His use of "for centuries" tells me that the Winter's knew that the Hopi people pre-date the ranch in Los Alamos. I could say that maybe they didn't know that Pueblo people pre-date the ranch--right there in Los Alamos--and that's why their "in the beginning" worked for them, but a later illustration in the book shows local people, some who could be Pueblo, passing through the security gate.

Ultimately, what the Winter's they knew when they made that page doesn't really matter, because intent does not matter. We have a book, in hand. The impact of the book on readers--Native or not--is what matters.

Back in March, I did an update to my review about a Walking Tour of Los Alamos that shows an Ancestral Pueblo very near Fuller Lodge. Here's a map showing that, and a photo of that site

The building in Jeanette Winter's illustration is meant to be the Big House that scientists moved into when they began work at the Los Alamos site of the Manhattan Project. Here's a juxtaposition of an early photograph and her illustration. Clearly, Jeanette Winter did some research.

In her illustration, the Big House is there, all by itself. In reality, the site didn't look like that in 1943. The school itself was started in 1917 (some sources say that boys started arriving in 1918), but by the time the school was taken over by the US government, there were far more buildings than just that one. Here's a list of them, described at The Atomic Heritage Foundation's website:

The Los Alamos Ranch School comprised 54 buildings: 27 houses, dormitories, and living quarters totaling 46,626 sq. ft., and 27 miscellaneous buildings: a public school, an arts & crafts building, a carpentry shop, a small sawmill, barns, garages, sheds, and an ice house totaling 29,560 sq. ft.

I don't have a precise date for this photograph (below) from the US Department of Energy's The Manhattan Project website. It was taken after the project began. The scope of the project required additional buildings. You see them in the photo, but the photo also shows two of the buildings that were part of the school: the Big House, and Fuller Lodge (for more photos and information see Fuller Lodge). I did not draw those circles or add that text. That is directly from the site.

Here's the second illustration in the book:

The boys who went to the school in 1945 were not from the people whose families lived in that area. An article in the Santa Fe New Mexican says that:

The students came from well-to-do families across the nation, and many went on to Ivy League colleges and prominent careers. Among them were writer Gore Vidal; former Sears, Roebuck and Co. President Arthur Wood; Hudson Motor Co. founder Roy Chapin; Santa Fe Opera founder John Crosby; and John Shedd Reed, president for nearly two decades of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.

The change from a school to a laboratory

Turning to the next double page spread, we see the school principal reading a letter from the US government. The man's name was A. J. Connell, and he was the director of the school. The letter (shown here, to the right) was sent to the director on December 7, 1942, saying the boys would have to leave by Feb. 8, 1943. Facing that page in the book is the scene where the boys had been playing games earlier, but now, there's no boys there. They've left behind a ball and a pair of shoes. 

In his review of The Secret Project, Sam Juliano wrote that this take over was "a kind of eminent domain maneuver." It was, and, as Melissa Green said in a comment at Reading While White's discussion of the book,

In her review Debbie Reese observed an elite boy’s school — Los Alamos Ranch School — whose students were “not from the communities of northern New Mexico at that time.” Of course not: local kids wouldn’t have qualified — local kids wouldn’t be “elite”, because they wouldn’t have been white. The very school whose loss is mourned (at least as I can tell from the reviews: I haven’t yet read the book) is a white school built on lands already stolen from the Pueblo people. And the emptiness of the land, otherwise…? It wasn't empty. But even when Natives are there, we white people have a bad habit — often a willful habit — of not seeing them.

Green put her finger on something I've been trying to articulate. The loss of the school is mourned. The illustration invites that response, for sure, and I understand that emotion. Green notes that the land belonged to Pueblo people before it became the school and then the lab ("the lab" is shorthand used by people who are from there). There's no mourning for our loss in this book. Honestly: I don't want anyone to mourn. Instead, I want more people to speak about accuracy in the ways that Native people are depicted or left out of children's books. 

The Atomic Heritage Organization has a timeline, indicating that people began arriving at Los Alamos in March, 1943. On the next double paged spread of The Secret Project, we see cars of scientists arriving at the site. On the facing page, other workers are brought in, to cook, to clean, and to guard. The workers are definitely from the local population. Some people look at that page and use it to argue that I'm wrong to say that the Winter's erased Pueblo people in those first pages, but the "nobody" framework reappears a few pages later.

By the way, the Manhattan Project Voices site has oral histories you can listen to, like the interview with Lydia Martinez from El Rancho, which is a Spanish community next to San Ildefonso Pueblo. 

The next two pages are about the scientists, working, night and day, on the "Gadget." In my review, I am not looking at the science. In his review, Edward Sullivan (I know his name and work from many discussions in children's literature circles) wrote about some problems with the text of The Secret Project. I'm sharing it here, for your convenience:

There was no "real name" for the bomb called the Gadget. "Gadget" was a euphemism for an implosion-type bomb that contained a plutonium core. Like the "Fat Man" bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Gadget was officially a Y-1561 device. The text is inaccurate in suggesting work at Site Y involved experimenting with atoms, uranium, or plutonium. The mission of Site Y was to create a bomb that would deliver either a uranium or plutonium core. The plutonium used in Gadget for the Trinity test was manufactured at a massive secret complex in Hanford, Washington. Uranium, used in the Hiroshima bomb, was manufactured at another massive secret complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. There are other factual errors I'm not going to go into here. Winter's audacious ambition to write a picture book story about the first atomic bomb is laudable but there are too many factual errors and omissions here to make this effort anything other than misleading. 

The art of that area...

Turning the page, we next see two outdoor scenes:

The text on those pages is:

Outside the laboratory, nobody knows they are there. Outside, there are just peaceful desert mountains and mesas, cacti, coyotes, prairie dogs. Outside the laboratory, in the faraway nearby, artists are painting beautiful paintings.

In my initial review, I noted the use of "nobody" on that page. Who does "nobody" refer to? I said then, and now, that a lot of people who lived in that area knew the scientists were there. They may not have been able to speak about what the scientists were doing, but they knew they were there. The Winter's use of the word "nobody" fits with a romantic way of thinking about the southwest. Coyotes howling, cactus, prairie dogs, gorgeous scenery--but people were there, too. 

I think the text and illustration on the right are a tribute to Georgia O'Keeffe who lived in Abiquiu. I think Jeanette Winter's illustration is meant to be O'Keeffe, painting Pedernal. That illustration is out of sync, timewise. O'Keeffe painted it in 1941, which is two years prior to when the scientists got started at Los Alamos.  

The next double-paged spread is one that prompted a great deal of discussion at the Reading While White review:

The text reads:

Outside the laboratory, in the faraway nearby, Hopi Indians are carving beautiful dolls out of wood as they have done for centuries. Meanwhile, inside the laboratory, the shadowy figures are getting closer to completing their secret invention.

In my initial review, I said this:

Hopi? That's over 300 miles away in Arizona. Technically, it could be the "faraway" place the Winter's are talking about, but why go all the way there? San Ildefonso Pueblo is 17 miles away from Los Alamos. Why, I wonder, did the Winter's choose Hopi? I wonder, too, what the take-away is for people who read the word "dolls" on that page? On the next page, one of those dolls is shown hovering over the lodge where scientists are working all night. What will readers make of that? 

Reaction to that paragraph is a primary reason I've done this second review. I said very little, which left people to fill in gaps.

Some people read my "why did the Winter's choose Hopi" as a suggestion that the Winter's were dissing Pueblo people by using a Hopi man instead of a Pueblo one. That struck me as an odd thing for that person to say, but I realized that I know something that person doesn't know: The Hopi are Pueblo people, too. They happen to be in the state now called Arizona, but they, and we--in the state now called New Mexico, are similar. In fact, one of the languages spoken at Hopi is the same one spoken at Nambé.

Some people thought I was objecting to the use of the word "dolls" because that's not the right word for them. They pointed to various websites that use that word. That struck me as odd, too, but I see that what I said left a gap that they filled in.

When I looked at that page, I wondered if maybe the Winter's had made a trip to Los Alamos and maybe to Bandelier, and had possibly seen an Artist in Residence who happened to be a Hopi man working on kachina dolls. I was--and am--worried that readers would think kachina dolls are toys. And, I wondered what readers would make of that one on the second page, hovering over the lodge.

What I was asking is: do children and adults who read this book have the knowledge they need to know that kachina dolls are not toys? They have spiritual significance. They're used for teaching purposes. And they're given to children in specific ways. We have some in my family--given to us in ways that I will not disclose. As children, we're taught to protect our ways. The voice of elders saying "don't go tell your teachers what we do" is ever-present in my life. This protection is there because Native peoples have endured outsiders--for centuries--entering our spaces and writing about things they see. Without an understanding of what they see, they misinterpret things.

The facing page, the one that shows a kachina hovering over the lodge, is not in full color. It is a ghost-like rendering of the one on the left:

We might say that the Winter's know that there is a spiritual significance to them, but the Winter's use of them is their use. Here's a series of questions. Some could be answered. My asking of them isn't a quest for answers. The questions are meant to ask people to reflect on them.

• Would a Hopi person use a kachina that way? 
• Which kachina is that? On that first page, Jeanette Winter shows several different ones, but what does she know about each one? 
• What is Jeanette Winter's source? Are those accurate renderings? Or are they her imaginings? 
• Why did Jeanette Winter use that one, in that ghost-like form, on that second page? Is it trying to tell them to stop? Is it telling them (or us) that it is watching the men because they're doing a bad thing? 

The point is, there's a gap that must be filled in by the reader. How will people fill in that gap? What knowledge will they turn to, or seek out, to fill that gap?

In the long exchange at Reading While White, Sam Juliano said that information about kachina dolls is on Wikipedia and all over the Internet. He obviously thinks information he finds is sufficient, but I disagree. Most of what is on the Internet is by people who are not themselves, Native. We've endured centuries of researchers studying this or that aspect of our lives. They did not know what they were looking at, but wrote about it anyway, from a White perspective. Some of that research led to policies that hurt us. Some of it led to thefts of religious items. Finally, laws were passed to protect us. One is the Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 (some good info here), and another is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, passed in 1990. With that as context, I look at that double-paged spread and wonder: how it is going to impact readers?

The two page spread with kachinas looks -- to some people -- like a good couple of pages because they suggest an honoring of Hopi people. However, any "honoring" that lacks substance is just as destructive as derogatory imagery. In fact, that "honoring" sentiment is why this country cannot seem to let go of mascots. People generally understand that derogatory imagery is inappropriate, but cannot seem to understand that romantic imagery is also a problem for the people being depicted, and for the people whose pre-existing views are being affirmed by that romantic image.

Update, Monday Oct 23, 8:00 AM
Conversations going on elsewhere about the kachina dolls insist that Jeanette Winter knows what she is doing, because she has a library of books about kachina dolls, because she's got a collection of them, and because she's had conversations with the people who made them. Unless she says something, we don't know, and in the end, what she knows does not matter. What we have is in the book she produced. In a case like this, it would have been ideal to have some information in the back matter and for some of her sources to have been included in the bibliography. If she talked with someone at the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, it would have been terrific to have a note about that in the back matter, too.

Other conversations suggest that readers would know that kachinas have a religious meaning. Some would, but others do not. Some see them as a craft item that kids can do. There are many how-to pages about making them using items like toilet paper rolls. And, there are pages about what to name the kachina dolls being made. Those pages point to a tremendous lack of understanding and a subsequent trivialization of Native cultures.

Curtains

One result of these long-standing misrepresentations and exploitations is this: For some time now, Native people have drawn curtains (in reality, and in the abstract) on what we do and what we share. As a scholar in children's literature, I've been adding "curtains" to Rudine Sims Bishop's metaphor of books as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. There are things people do not share with outsiders.

Tribal nations have protocols for researchers who want to do research. Of relevance here is the information at the website for the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office. There are books about researchers, like Linda Tuhiwai Smith's Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, now in its 2nd edition.

My point: there are resources out there that can help writers, editors, reviewers, teachers, parents and librarians grow in their understandings of all of this.

The Land of Enchantment

The last page that I want to talk about in some detail is this one:

The text is:

Sometimes the shadowy figures emerge from the shadows, pale and tired and hallow-eyed, and go to the nearby town.

That nearby town is meant to be Santa Fe. See the woman seated on the right, holding a piece of pottery? The style of those two buildings and her presence suggests that they're driving into the plaza. It looks to me like they're on a dirt road. I think the roads into Santa Fe were already paved by then. See the man with the burro? I think that's out of time, too. The Manhattan Project Voices page has a photograph of the 109 E. Palace Avenue from that time period. It was the administrative office where people who were part of the Manhattan Project reported when they arrived in Santa Fe:

You can find other photos like that, too. Having grown up at Nambé, I have an attachment to our homelands. Visitors, past-and-present, have felt its special qualities, too. That’s why so many artists moved there and it is why so many people move there now. I don’t know who first called it “the land of enchantment” but that’s its moniker. Too often, outsiders lose perspective that it is a land where brutal violence took place. What we saw with the development of the bomb is one recent violent moment, but it is preceded by many others. Romanticizing my homeland tends to erase its violent past. The art in The Secret Project gets at the horror of the bomb, but it is marred by the romantic ways that the Winter's depicted Native peoples.

Update, Oct 19, 9:15 AM
Below, in a comment from Sam Juliano, he says that the text of the book does not say that the scientists were going to the plaza in Santa Fe. He is correct. The text does not say that on that page. Here's the next illustration in the book:

That is the plaza. Other than the donkeys, the illustration is accurate. Of course, a donkey could have been there, but it is not likely at that time. If you were on the sidewalk, one of those buildings shown would be the Palace of the Governors. Its "porch" is famous as a place where Native artists sell their work. In the previous illustration, I think Jeanette Winter was depicting one of the artists who sells their work there, at the porch. Here's a present-day photo of Native artists there. (It is, by the way, where I recommend you buy art. Money spent there goes directly to the artist.)  

  

Some concluding thoughts

The Secret Project got starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly, the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, The Horn Book, Booklist, and Kirkus. None of the reviews questioned the Native content or omissions. The latter are harder for most people to see, but I am disappointed that they did not spend time (or write about, if they did) on the pages with the kachina dolls. 

I fully understand why people like this book. I especially understand that, under the current president, many of us fear a nuclear war. This book touches us in an immediate way, because of that sense of doom. But--we cannot let fear boost this book into winning an award that has problems of accuracy, especially when it is a work of nonfiction.

There are people who think I'm trying to destroy this book. As has been pointed out here and elsewhere, it got starred reviews. My review and my "not recommended" tag is not going to destroy this book.

What I've offered here, back in March, and on the Reading While White page is not going to destroy this book. It has likely made the Winter's uncomfortable or angry. It has certainly made others feel angry.

I do not think the Winter's are racist. I do think, however, that there's things they did not know that they do know now. I know for a fact that they have read what I've written. I know it was upsetting to them. That's ok, though. Learning about our own ignorance is unsettling. I have felt discomfort over my own ignorance, many times. In the end, what I do is try to help people see depictions of Native peoples from what is likely to be their non-Native perspective. I want books to be better than they are, now. And I also know that many writers value what I do.

Now, I'm hitting the upload button (at 8:30 AM on Tuesday, October 17th). I hope it is helpful to anyone who is reading the book or considering buying it. I may have typos in what I've written, or passages that don't make sense. Let me know! And of course, if you've got questions or comments, please let me know.

___________

If you've submitted a comment that includes a link to another site and it didn't work after you submitted the comment, I'll insert them here, alphabetically.

Caldecott Medal Contender: The Secret Project
submitted by Sam Juliano, who asked people to see comments, there, about me (note: tks to Ricky for letting me know I had the incorrect link for Sam Juliano's page. It is correct now.)

Guidelines for Respecting Cultural Knowledge (Assembly of Alaska Native Educators, 2000)
submitted by Melissa Green

Indigenous Intellectual Property (Wikipedia)
submitted by Melissa Green

Intellectual Property Rights (Hopi Cultural Preservation Office)
submitted by Melissa Green

Reviewing While White: The Secret Project
submitted by Melissa Green

Highly Recommended: #NotYourPrincess: Voices of Native American Women, edited by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale

#NotYourPrincess: Voices of Native American Women is another outstanding collection edited by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale. Released on September 12th, 2017 from Annick Press, it is one you'll definitely want to add to your shelves--alongside their other two books--Urban Tribes and Dreaming in Indian.

#NotYourPrincess is one of those books that is so stunning in so many ways, it is kind of hard to decide where to start!

Let's start with the title.  The hashtag title is perfection. It boldly says that Native women are here and we have things to say.

Some of you may know that a lot of activism takes place on Twitter. Native people have been creating and using hashtags to inform others about the things Native people care about. Did you, for example, follow the conversations that took place using #NotYourPocahontas and #NotYourMascot?

#NotYourPrincess is the first part of the title. The rest of it is "Voices of Native American Women." That's what Charleyboy and Leatherdale give us this time. The words and art of Native women. Let's take a look inside their book...

A couple of years ago, I was visiting Heid Erdrich at Birchbark Books. While there, I saw a stunning painting by Aza E. Abe. She's Turtle Mountain Ojibwe. Her painting, titled RedWoman, is the first item in #NotYourPrincess! (Some of you may know, too, that it is on the cover of Louise Erdrich's The Round House.)

Facing it is a piece written by Leanne Simpson. She's Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg:

Turning the pages, it is easy to see why Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale put these two items side-by-side as an opening for the book. With them, I am visually and textually drawn into an Indigenous space that wraps me in a warm embrace, and that--in some instances--pierces that warmth with truths, but right away, brings me back to that place of knowing the power of Native women.

The next double page spread has Tear -- a poem by Linda Hogan (she's Chickasaw) -- that is about the past and future. Here's the last part of her poem. It resonates with me, deeply: 

The world behind them did not close.
The world before them is still open.
All around me are my ancestors,
my unborn children. 

I am the tear between them
and both sides live.

 It is brilliantly paired with a painting by Wakeah Jhane (she is Comanche/Blackfoot/Kiowa):

She is a self-taught ledger artist. The ledger behind the woman in the painting signifies ancestors who were at boarding schools, while the child she carries embodies the future. I mean it when I say that I'm sitting here, blinking back tears at the beauty, the power, and the resilience in #NotYourPrincess. I'd love to upload images of every page, but of course, won't do that.

What I will do, is tell you to get a copy right away for yourself, and for Native teens in your life. I sang the praises of Dreaming in Indian and of Urban Tribes but there's a quality to #NotYourPrincess that... well, that I don't have words for yet, that do justice to how it is impacting me.

****

The work of 58 different Native women is in #NotYourPrincess. Art, words, photography. What you see and read in this book will linger in your head and heart.

Some thoughts on Jason Chin's GRAND CANYON

I'll likely catch heck from people who think it is unfair to criticize a book for what it leaves out. In some instances, I'd agree. Sometimes, it isn't fair. Sometimes, though, it is.

If you're an American, you think of the Grand Canyon as a spectacular place. It is that, for sure, but if you're a Native person, particularly one from the tribal nations for whom the canyon is significant as a site of origin or of spiritual importance, you may think of it as a spectacular place, but you are also likely to think of it in other ways that you may or may not feel ok to talk about.

The point of view in Jason Chin's Grand Canyon is not a Native one. Kirkus describes the little girl as Asian American. Other than her and her dad, there aren't any people in the book. They're on a solitary journey into the Grand Canyon. I think it helps readers focus on the land and animals of the present, but of the past, too. There are pages where the little girl is transported to the past. All in all, the book is packed with good information. Science teachers will like it, a lot. It has gotten starred reviews from most of the major children's literature review journals. It may likely be considered for awards this year! The Grand Canyon is published in 2017 by Roaring Book Press (part of Macmillan).

****

I'd like to offer some thoughts on how Chin can "kick it up a notch" (remember the Food Network chef who used that phrase?!).

In the closing pages, Chin touches on the Human History of the canyon. He starts with humans of 12,000 years ago and then moves forward from there, saying:

Later, several different cultures settled in and around the canyon, including the Ancestral Puebloans, farmers and skilled potters who lived in multi-room buildings called pueblos. Today's Hopi and Zuni peoples trace their heritage to the Ancestral Puebloans. It wasn't until Hopi guides led Spanish explorers to the South Rim in 1540 that the first Europeans saw Grand Canyon. 

He follows that with a paragraph about John Wesley Powell being there in 1869 and that in 1919, President Wilson designated it a national park. Then,

The park covers more than one million acres of land and most of the canyon lies inside the park boundary, while parts of it are within the borders of the Hualapai, Havasupai, and Navajo Indian reservations. The canyon remains a place of cultural and spiritual importance for many Native American tribes, including the Hopi, Navajo, Zuni, Paiute, Apache, Hualapai, and Havasupai.

If a second printing is ahead of Chin, I suggest he replace "tribes" with "tribal nations." And, it'd be great for kids to see a map of the reservations Chin references in that paragraph. Google includes some on their maps. Here's one of that area that shows Grand Canyon National Park. To the left is the Hualapai Indian Reservation; to the right are the Hopi Reservation, the Navajo Nation Reservation, the Zuni Reservation, and at the bottom, the Fort Apache Reservation.

Another suggestion is to bring Native languages into the book. On that first page, where we see the mountain lion descending into the canyon, Chin could use the borders in the same way he did elsewhere in the book. On this first page, they're blank. He could get in touch with the tribal offices for each of the reservations and ask them what--in their language--they call the Grand Canyon. He could do a small sketch of a Hopi child saying "At Hopi, we call it ___" and so on. And on that page about the Kaibab Formation, Chin could add a note about the word, "kaibab" and what it means.

Another addition could be a paragraph about President Wilson's actions to designate it a national park. How did tribal leaders feel about that, then? How do they feel about it, now?

Wouldn't all that additional information be cool? Do you have additional suggestions?

Beverly Slapin's review of JUAN PABLO AND THE BUTTERFLIES

Back in June, a reader wrote to ask me about Juan Pablo and the Butterflies by J. J. Flowers. I did a "have you seen" post about it and am glad to see that Beverly Slapin, of De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children, has a review up now. Here's some excerpts:

Abuela appears to be a shaman as well. She’s an all-in-one spiritual phenom, singularly embodying not only a whole culture’s metaphysics but also bits of other cultures—a mishmash of mythology and mysticism that the author invents. 

Still, it was the old woman’s shamanic powers that were a good deal more popular than her famous doctoring skill. Nothing made his abuela happier than taking away people’s aches and pains, their troubles and struggles. She took away the pain of childbirth as well as the opposite, the struggle of transitioning. She cured little Jose’s [sic / the nickname for “José” would be “Pepe,” not “little José”] poor hearing, but also his mother’s gambling problem, Ms. Sanchez’s strange rash, but also her husband’s infidelity, Mr. Hernandez’s high blood pressure, but also his depression. Occasionally she worked miracles, curing dementia, diabetes, and even many different cancers. People sought her out from hundreds of miles away. (p. 11)

And there's a subsection about playing Indian:

NOTE ABOUT “PLAYING INDIAN”

When Juan Pablo and Rocio were children: 

Following his abuela’s suggestion, he and Rocio had built an Indian tepee [sic] in the forest just beyond the meadow. No one else but his abuela knew about it. The tepee [sic] became their secret, a private tent where they passed the endless hours of childhood playing imaginary games: Indians—Rocio was the chief and he was the brave; hospital—Rocio was the doctor and he the patient; school—Rocio was the teacher and he the student; and the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry—finally, he was Harry Potter and Rocio was Hermione. But lately, as they began outgrowing imaginary games, they hiked up to the tepee [sic] just to read good books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Old Man and the Sea, but also The Fault in Our Stars and The Hunger Games. (p.21)

Since most Mexicans are of Mestizo heritage, they’re “Indians.” That Juan Pablo’s Indian abuela would encourage the Indian children to “play Indian” doesn’t make any internal cultural sense. And, as Indian children, why would they want to enact stereotypical Plains Indians? This is all the author’s cultural assumptions and does not apply to Mexican children who probably did not grow up watching “cowboys and Indians” on 1950s TV shoot-‘em-ups. (JP and Rocio’s “tepee” shows up in a later chapter, when Juan Pablo and Rocio are on the run and hide in this “wooden structure,” which a tipi is not.)

The author also inserts some miscellaneous stuff that misrepresents Indians and Mestizos:

If [JP] squinted against the light just so, he could see the narrowest of paths reaching around the cliff. Probably an old Indian path. Indians used to live here hundreds of years ago, after the Aztecs and before the Spaniards. (p. 81)

Go read the full review! There's a lot of detail there that you'll find helpful. 

Recommended: Daniel W. Vandever's FALL IN LINE, HOLDEN

I love Daniel W. Vandever's Fall In Line, Holden! 

Published this year (2017) by Salina Bookshelf, it is a terrific picture book about a Navajo boy. Here's the description from the publisher's website:

Fall in Line, Holden! follows Holden, a young Navajo boy, through his day at boarding school. Although Holden is required to conform to a rigid schedule and strict standards of behavior, his internal life is led with imagination and wonder. Whether he is in art class, the computer lab, or walking the hall to lunch, Holden’s vivid imagination transforms his commonplace surroundings into a world of discovery and delight.

Explore the world through Holden’s eyes. Join him for the day, and celebrate the strong spirit of a boy who rises above the rules surrounding him.

In an interview at the Salina Bookshelf Youtube channel, you can hear directly from Vandever about the book and how it came to be. He cites statistics, too, about the lack of books that can function as mirrors for Native kids. My hunch is he saw CCBC's data. 

Holden--the little boy in the story--is a combination of the author, his dad, and his nephew. Three things that especially appeal to me are...

First, that the little boy's imagination is the heart of the story. Turning the pages, you'll see what Holden sees--and what the rest of us miss--when we stand in rigid spaces. I could easily see teachers using it and alongside John Herrington's Mission to Space.  

Second, the art! When people think "American Indian" (or "Native American") a certain imagery or style comes to mind. Vandever blows that expectation away with his own graphic style. Studying it, I'm reminded of Phil Deloria's book Indians in Unexpected Places. We are, and do, so much more than mainstream society knows. In that regard, Vandever's book is outstanding. 

Third, Vandever's notes provide teachers with important context about Native peoples and education. 

I hope he writes another book, and of course, I highly recommend that you get a copy of Fall in Line, Holden! for your classroom or library!  

Recommended: YOU HOLD ME UP by Monique Gray Smith

Due out in October of 2017 is Monique Gray Smith's You Hold Me Up. Published by Orca, it is a picture book about ways that people can hold each other, and hold each other up, by helping each other, or playing together, or singing, or cooking. 

Smith's text is heartwarming! And the illustrations, by Danielle Daniel's, reflect Native people in the present day. 

Like My Heart Fills With Happiness, this new book by Smith is one that parents, grandparents, pre-school and elementary teachers, and librarians, will want to have on their shelves, but I encourage everyone to read Smith's note in back and -- if you don't already know about it -- learn all you can about residential schools in Canada, and boarding schools in the United States.

Not recommended: TWISTED TRUE TALES FROM SCIENCE: MEDICAL MAYHEM

This morning, I read Elisa Gall's review of Medical Mayhem, a book in the "Twisted True Tales from Science" series published by Prufrock. She shared these two images:

At 5:06 AM on July 21, 2017, I used twitter to thank Elisa for that review. I tagged the publisher.

At 10:14 AM, Prufrock replied, saying
"We should never have allowed these images in a book by Prufrock Press. We are deeply sorry."

At 10:16 AM, Profrock said
"This is inexcusable. We are in the process of destroying that inventory and replacing it with a corrected edition."


I assume they know that it is not just the images, created by Eliza Bolli, that are a problem. The text, by Stephanie Bearce, also needs attention.

The editor, Lucy Compton, did not see the problems in text or illustration. Neither did any of the "experts" who reviewed it at the Prufrock page for the book. Elaine Wiener, a gifted education communicator, missed it. So did Terri Schlichenmeyer, of New York Parenting, and Lori Cirucci of NSTA Recommends (NSTA is the National Science Teachers Association), and Paula Young of Science-Nook, and Muhammed Hassanali of the Seattle Book Review. If you go over to the Goodreads page for the book, you'll see lot of praise there, too.

Prufrock is an educational publisher. Looking at their products, I see page after page of materials for teachers. There's other children's books, too. There's one on the Wild West and one on the Civil War. What, I wonder, lurks in those two books--and the professional materials, too?

I'm glad that Profrock is going to destroy this inventory and replace it. For that--this post about the book and their response is going on to the Revisions to Racism page here on AICL.

First look at PURITAN GIRL, MOHAWK GIRL by John Demos

John Demos has a book coming out in October of 2017 from Amulet Books (an imprint of Abrams). Some of you who read history books may recognize his name because of his book, Entertaining Satan, or because of his Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America. Demos is a history professor at Yale, but I don't know if he's teaching there or not on a regular basis.

In doing the background work for my review of his Puritan Girl, Mohawk Girl, I see that he did another book for young readers, back in 1995. That one is The Tried and the True: Native American Women Confronting Colonization. I'll see if I can find a copy of it.

The story Demos tells in this book is about Eunice Williams. Its audience is children who are 8 to 12 years old. Here's the description at Amazon:

In this riveting historical fiction narrative, National Book Award Finalist John Demos shares the story of a young Puritan girl and her life-changing experience with the Mohawk people.

Inspired by Demos’s award-winning novel The Unredeemed Captive, Puritan Girl, Mohawk Girl will captivate a young audience, providing a Native American perspective rather than the Western one typically taught in the classroom.

As the armed conflicts between the English colonies in North America and the French settlements raged in the 1700s, a young Puritan girl, Eunice Williams, is kidnapped by Mohawk people and taken to Canada. She is adopted into a new family, a new culture, and a new set of traditions that will define her life. As Eunice spends her days learning the Mohawk language and the roles of women and girls in the community, she gains a deeper understanding of her Mohawk family.  Although her father and brother try to persuade Eunice to return to Massachusetts, she ultimately chooses to remain with her Mohawk family and settlement. 

Puritan Girl, Mohawk Girl offers a compelling and rich lesson that is sure to enchant young readers and those who want to deepen their understanding of Native American history.

Eunice Williams was a real person, born in September of 1696. As a child, she was captured in a raid. The story Demos tells in Puritan Girl, Mohawk Girl is described (on the back cover of the ARC) as a historical novel inspired by The Unredeemed Captive. His Unredeemed Captive is cataloged as biography.

Todays "First Look" is the first in a series of blog posts I'll do on Puritan Girl, Mohawk Girl.

The Cover 

The words "PURITAN GIRL" are in black font. They're easy to see. The words "MOHAWK GIRL" are in a tan font. They're harder to read. I don't know what the cover designer was going for with the two different colors but I find the tan one less prominent. Visually, that makes Puritan more visible than Mohawk.

Look, too, at the 'R' in the first use of Girl and the R in the second use. See the difference? This reflects a design element in which font style is used to signal "other." You may have seen this on some book covers--where the shape and design of letters are used to visually signal "other." The R in the Puritan girl is what most would recognize as the way R's look, but the R in the Mohawk girl is angular. Visually, this different treatment of the R signals difference in how we're to think of these two peoples. Some would see the difference as good; others would not.

What are your thoughts on these visual ways of setting Puritan apart from Mohawk?



Preface

The first line in the preface is

When Christopher Columbus and other explorers got to America from Europe, they found millions of people already living there. 

Right off the bat, I see problems there.

First,"explorers" is the default word for Columbus and other "explorers." That idea--of exploration--is generally seen as a good, or, something positive. The word 'explore' means to investigate, study, analyze, become familiar with.  The word "explorer" means one who explores. But, I think we all know there is more to Columbus's voyage than "explore." He was looking for something that would make him, those who sponsored his voyages, and others, too, wealthy (and wealthier).

Second, Demos used "America" to describe a place that wasn't--at that time--called America. The millions of people who were living there when Columbus arrived had their own words for it. The word "America" -- according to the Oxford dictionary -- dates back to the early 16th century and is believed to be a derivation of the name of Amerigo Vespucci, who sailed along the west coast of South Africa in 1501.

In the 2nd paragraph, Demos writes

They saw America as a "new world." They settled on the land and claimed it for themselves. They started farms, villages, and towns. They organized "colonies" that belonged to their home countries in Europe. They didn't ask permission from the Indians; they just went ahead with their plans. They viewed Indians as inferior to themselves--as "savages" living in a primitive way. 

Demos is following a well-trod way of depicting this "new world." By that, I mean he fails to note that Native peoples had farms, villages, and towns before Europeans got here. In the next paragraph he says that the two groups had certain advantages over the other, which is accurate, but what he says pretty much affirms the "primitive" and inaccurate imagery so many people have. More about that, later.

I'm also curious about using the idea of "asking for permission" to characterize what happened. It doesn't work, right? Let's bring it to something of the present day. Say you have some acreage that someone thinks you're not using. Let's say someone from Spain comes over, sees it, and thinks they'll build something there. They knock on your door and say "with your permission, I'd like to build my house on that spot over there." See why the idea of "permission" doesn't work?

I gotta dash off for now to do some other work. I welcome your comments on what I've said so far about this book.

Debbie--have you seen THE QUEST FOR Z: THE TRUE STORY OF EXPLORER PERCY FAWCETT AND A LOST CITY IN THE AMAZON by Greg Pizzoli?

A teacher wrote to ask if I've seen The Quest for Z: The True Story of Explorer Percy Fawcett and a Lost City in the Amazon by Greg Pizzoli. Out in June of 2017 from Viking Books for Young Readers, it is getting starred reviews. Here's the description:

British explorer Percy Fawcett believed that hidden deep within the Amazon rainforest was an ancient city, lost for the ages. Most people didn’t even believe this city existed. But if Fawcett could find it, he would be rich and famous forever. This is the true story of one man’s thrilling, dangerous journey into the jungle, and what he found on his quest for the lost city of Z.

Rich and famous. Explorer. British. Why the starred reviews for another in a long line of stories that celebrates exploitation, colonization, and, well, capitalism?!

Page one (and the title, too) tell us that this story is about the Amazon rainforest:

Less than one hundred years ago, maps of the world still included large "blank spots": distant and dangerous lands that mapmakers and scientists had not yet explored.

Critical readers will ask--right away--about the point of view of this story. That land was not "distant and dangerous" to the people that lived there. And it was not unexplored by them, either. Here's one possible rewrite of that sentence:

Less than one hundred years ago, British maps of the world still included large "blank spots": distant and dangerous lands that British mapmakers and British scientists had not yet explored. 

Here's another:

Less than one hundred years ago, British mapmakers and scientists, imagining themselves superior to all other peoples of the world, called the homelands of those peoples "distant and dangerous" and could not imagine that those peoples also had mapmakers and scientists. Those British people were racist. 

It is frustrating to see books like this one... Do you have a copy? How might you re-write it? Might you do a re-write of it--with kids? It would be an excellent exercise in point of view, racism, and the ongoing refusal to decenter Whiteness.

I may be back, later, with more to say...