Debbie--have you seen THE BRAVE by James Bird?

A reader wrote to ask if we've read The Brave by James Bird. I am aware of it but have not read it. 

Bird's main character is a 13 year old boy named Collin who has never met his Ojibwe mother before, but is being sent to live with her by his white father. In a podcast I listened to earlier today, Bird says his father was white and his mother was Ojibwe. Bird was born in California and when he turned 18 or 19, went to Minnesota to "experience my tribe."  

Bird's book got several positive reviews (some stars, even) from the major children's literature review journals but it got a scathing review from David Treuer. He's an acclaimed writer and scholar. On his website he tells us he is an Ojibwe Indian from Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. His review of The Brave appeared in The New York Times on July 31, 2020. Here's the last three paragraphs:

It's especially important that they do it in fiction for young people, which may be the only stage of life when most Americans think about us at all, as our history and present tense is inaccurately and glancingly taught to them in school.

If you're a regular reader of AICL or articles we write, or talks we give, you probably know that we say something similar to what Treuer said, a lot. The reason? People defend problematic fiction by saying (often in capital letters): IT IS FICTION. Sometimes they go on to say that a writer can do anything they want in fiction. That is true, but there's larger contexts and consequences to consider. Now the last two paragraphs of the review:   

The world depicted in "The Brave" is not Native American life as I know it. It's summer camp, complete with exotic names and faux rituals; chock-full of crafts, bravery tests and self-discovery.

I want better books for my Ojibwe/Seneca children to read: books that add to the stock of available reality, that incorporate our Native lives in a way that informs those lives and makes them larger. "The Brave" does none of those things. 

I have a copy now and am reading it, making notes as I read.  

[Back to add that as I read, I look things up. The book takes place on the Fond du Lac reservation. I wondered if Bird has relatives there, so did a search using his name and that reservation. I see a review by Deborah Locke in The Circle, a Native newspaper. Locke goes into more detail than Treuer did. Apparently a peach tree will be of significance to this story--but, the reviewer says--there are no peach trees in northern Minnesota. The review ends with "...we should be past stereotypes of stoic, wise Indians who speak little and are abnormally attached to the great outdoors." ] 

Highly Recommended! "Seasons of Alaska" board books from Best Beginnings Alaska

Let's Play Out! by Yaari Toolie-Walker

Button Up! by Angela Y. Gonzales

Mittens and Mukluks! by Joni Spiess

Bye-Bye Ice! by Carla Snow

Published by Best Beginnings Alaska in 2020

Reviewed by Debbie Reese

Review Status: Highly Recommended

With delight, I'm here today to tell you about four board books that came out in 2020 from Best Beginnings Alaska. The four books are about the seasons. I'm sharing them with you in December of 2020. So--I am starting with winter, by Joni Spiess (Inupiaq):

And here's spring, by Carla Snow (Yup'ik Upper):

Here is summertime, by Yaari Toolie-Walker (Siberian Yupik):

And here is fall, by Angela Y. Gonzales (Koyukon Athabascan):

This photograph is from "Athabaskan Woman" -- which is Angela Y. Gonzales's website. Go read her post! It has information about the book series: 

I adore these books! Of course, I'm going to add them to our Best Books of 2020 list!

The photographs of Alaska Native children doing things indoors and out that are specific to being an Alaska Native child--and doing the things that children do, no matter where they are, are heart-warming. As I read Mittens and Mukluks! I paused on the page that shows a child in a traditional coat that "Aana made for me." In smaller print is "Aana is Inupiaq for grandmother." I like seeing Native words in books, so that particular page is another reason I am so drawn to the books. 

And hey! Many children who receive books from the Dolly Parton Imagination Library in Alaska may already have them! How cool is that? Add them to your next book order. 

Highly Recommended: THE RANGE ETERNAL by Louise Erdrich

The Range Eternal

Written by Louise Erdrich

Illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher

Published by University of Minnesota Press

Reviewed by Debbie Reese

Review Status: Highly Recommended

 
When I was a little girl on our reservation (Nambé Owingeh), I sat by my grandmother's wood stove and watched her cook and tend the fire in her stove. In The Range Eternal we see a mother and daughter standing at their stove, making soup. 

Here's a photo of that page. Look at the bottom right corner. See that dark rectangle next to that circle? That rectangle is a slot for a tool that lets you lift that circular cut-out of the stovetop so you can put wood right underneath that spot, to make the spot extra hot for your cooking. My grandmother would put a slice of bread just over that rectangle. As the bread toasted, a rectangular shape would emerge on my bread. I don't have a memory of talking about that rectangle. It is just something my grandmother did to my toast. In another spot on the stove, she used a copper bottom one-cup measuring cup to make my oatmeal. It is such a warm memory! 

But--there's also some scary memories, too. The ceiling of my grandmother's house was boards supported by beams. Those beams had once been trees. My grandfather cut the trees down, then cut the branches off, and then peeled the bark away, leaving a rough beam. In my childhood imagination, some of the spots where the branches had been cut away formed scary-looking faces. The nearness of my grandparents chased those frights away. 

Childhood imagination and the warmth of memory permeates The Range Eternal. The little girl standing with her mother by the stove imagines a Windigo, and deer, and bear, and horses, and the buffalo you see on the book cover. Time passes and the arrival of electrical wires means the stove is moved out of the house and an electric one takes its place. But--it is missed. More time passes and the little girl grows up and still, as an adult, feels like something is missing. One day she sees a Range Eternal in an antique store and knows what was missing. It is the stove. So, she gets it. The closing pages show us the woman and her children by their Range Eternal. 

It is a marvelous story that I absolutely adore! The Author's Note gives us something, too. The Range Eternal of this story was her grandmother's stove. Her mother talked about that stove, with affection. The illustration with the note is by Dr. Angela Erdrich--Louise Erdrich's sister. It is of their mother, standing in front of a Range Eternal. Dr. Erdrich's art adds layers of warmth to the story told in The Range Eternal. 

I've clearly made a personal connection to The Range Eternal. For me, it evokes a lot of memories. We had electricity in my grandmother's house but we did not have running water or gas, yet. Both would come before I was ten years old. Though they made life easier in some ways, other things are lost. Those things hold powerful feelings. On a low table, my grandparents had buckets of water that they'd get from the river each morning. I'd go with them, sometimes. In the wintertime, we'd have to chip away at the ice. Next to the buckets was a dipper to scoop water for cooking and cleaning. Sometimes, though, I'd drink right from that dipper.  Where is that dipper, now? 

I'd best bring this reminiscing to a close and say -- get a copy of The Range Eternal. First published in 2002, I'm thrilled that the University of Minnesota Press brought it out again. It is part history, part family story, and very Native. Spend time with it and your own memories!

Questions about Messner and Rex's THE NEXT PRESIDENT: THE UNEXPECTED BEGINNINGS AND UNWRITTEN FUTURE OF AMERICA'S PRESIDENTS

On March 24, 2020, Chronicle Books published a new social studies-themed picture book for ages 8-12. Titled The Next President: The Unexpected Beginnings and Unwritten Future of America’s Presidents, it is written by Kate Messner and illustrated by Adam Rex. As readers of AICL know, we approach our reviews with a Native reader in mind. How will a Native child feel about the contents of this book? How will that child’s parents feel about its contents? We are precisely those parents. 

Our post about The Next President differs from our typical posts in which we recommend, or do not recommend, a book based on its handling of Native content. The Next President is, in many ways, unlike most other books, particularly books about the presidency for young people. We found that we engaged differently with it. So this post is as much about that engagement as it is about the words and illustrations -- what we noticed, what we questioned, and where we went with our questions. We hope readers of the blog will find this approach useful. Part of our engagement involved a series of online, COVID-safe conversations, so we have inserted our names as appropriate, to show who said what.

Debbie: The Next President got some starred reviews. It uses an interesting concept. Rather than repeat what other books about presidents do--which is to talk about their presidency--it is an opportunity for children to see some aspect of each president’s life before they became president. The structure of that information is intriguing, too. Rather than a strict chronological presentation, it is framed by periods/years. Within that structure, Messner and Rex give us information about individuals who were born during that time and/or something they did. It is difficult to describe in words, so we’ll show you a page, here (this image is from Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast's blog post about the book):

Jean: This is the first informational two-page spread in the book. It is focused on 1789, the year George Washington became president of the United States. As with most of the pages in the book, there’s a lot going on. On the left, Washington gestures from inside a portrait someone is painting. On the right, four of the men who would later become president are deep in serious conversation. The text above them provides pre-presidency facts about each of them in order: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. The text in the box for President 2 says: 

John Adams was Washington’s vice president. Adams was known for having a short temper and getting into arguments. He was the only one of the first five presidents who didn’t enslave people.

Now, look closely at what Adam Rex has created behind them. Several Black people are shown carrying a building. We thought at first it must be the White House, but it is actually what was called Federal Hall in New York, which no longer exists. In 1789, Federal Hall was a significant government building -- New York was the capital of the US then. Washington was inaugurated there, and Congress passed the Bill of Rights and established the federal judiciary in that building. A lot of the infrastructure of that time was built with enslaved labor (and slavery existed in New York at the time). So I think this illustration of the Black workers holding up Federal Hall might suggest a couple of things. One, it says that the labor of enslaved people was essential to the growth of the United States even in those early days of the country. And it may also say that when the seat of government picked up and moved (from New York to Philadelphia to Washington DC), much of that work was done by people who were enslaved, and whose human rights were denied by that government. It seems to me that illustrations like this one -- a depiction of people holding up an entire building --  invite readers to look further for meaning. 

Debbie: We like that the author/illustrator team tells readers about slavery, right away. We’re told that Presidents Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Washington enslaved people. We wish that information extended to other presidents beyond these four. The website, “Slavery in the President’s Neighborhood” says 12 presidents enslaved Africans. In Messner and Rex’s book, the other eight pretty much get a pass. 

Another page we like a lot is the opening double page spread, where we see a range of people and families touring a gallery where they learn about each of the presidents. We especially like that this is a very diverse set of individuals and families (this image is from Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast's blog post about the book):

Jean, as we looked at the book, what stood out for you? 

Jean: Ah … Aside from the nearly complete lack of reference to Native people …  I was struck by the range of pre-presidency experiences Messner and Rex depict. We see Andrew Jackson scowling at a bird, along with text about his temper. (Later there’s a page about a duel in which he killed a man.) And on the facing page are pictures of 10-year-old Martin Van Buren, 16-year-old William Henry Harrison, and then 4-year-old Zachary Taylor playing in water with a stick. Jackson, Harrison, and Taylor later were known as “Indian fighters”, which boosted their political careers, and Van Buren eventually oversaw Indian Removal to Oklahoma. None were making war in the year 1789, but their interactions with Native people would prove significant, so I think it would have been good to have some mention of that in the book.

What’s something that stood out for you, Deb?

Debbie: When I first opened the book and saw the end paper art, I was really annoyed. You know how books have a nameplate in a book where its owner can write their name? This one says “This Country Belongs to” and has a line for a child to write their name. It reminded me of the uncritical singing of “This land is your land, this land is my land…” Both obscure the history of this continent, who those lands belong to, and the wars that Native people fought to keep their families safe on their homelands. Part of me wants to enjoy little Zachary playing with that stick but all I can think of is “whose land is that, Zachary, and how did your parents get it?!” That emotion carried, for me, as I went from one page to another in the book. 

As we paged through the book, we spent a lot of time on some of the things we noticed. Like that statue of George Washington. That is… interesting, isn’t it? Here's a screen capture of it, taken with my phone: 

Jean: Oh, gosh, yes. Adam Rex places a huge statue of Washington in the middle of the gallery on that first full 2-page spread. Is it a factual depiction or is it something imagined that Rex wants readers to think about, like the enslaved men holding up the building in the illustration we mentioned? We ended up down a research rabbit hole, wondering if that’s a real statue. It turns out it’s a real monument -- Washington in white marble, seated on a throne and half naked, holding a sword. Right behind him, Rex shows a strange, smaller figure which, it turns out, is literally the only representation of Native people in the entire book.

Deb, do you want to say more about what we found out about the statue and that figure? 

Debbie: The sculptor’s name is Horatio Greenough. As we dug in that rabbit hole we learned that the statue has two small figures behind the seated Washington. From a Smithsonian page about the statue, we learned that those two figures are an American Indian and Christopher Columbus, and that they represent the Old and New World (see the side-by-side comparison of the Greenough's "Indian" with Rex’s representation of it, below). I was already annoyed with the endpaper, and so, realizing that the only Native image in the book was presented in that particular context added to my disappointment.  

Jean: That statue has a strange history. When the work was unveiled in 1840, public opinion was strongly against it. People hated that it showed Washington partly clothed, and made him seem king-like. I have a negative reaction, too, for a different reason: unlike every other statue I’ve seen of a Native person created by a white person, this figure conveys purposeless, indecision, and maybe even laziness. The subject kind of leans forward and stares into the middle distance, and looks to be scratching his ear. Definitely not the heroic noble savage trope there, but definitely not any better. Think of how much time and effort went into creating a lackadaisical, confused Native man in white marble. I’d love to know the sculptor’s decision-making process. (Source for image of Rex's illustration is Debbie's camera; source for the photo on the right is George Washington Unclothed.)

Debbie: And I want to know why Rex included it! I hope teachers would want to dig in like we did but am not sure they’ll be able to do that, given the incredible demands on their time overall. A teacher could do a lot of fascinating research with students--just on that statue especially now, during a period when people are asking important questions about statues across the US and around the world. Who commissioned them, when, and why? As I did research on Greenough’s statue, I read Monument Wars: Washington D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape by Kirk Savage. He said that initially, Greenough meant to include a small statue of “a negro” (Savage used quotation marks around the word) to represent plantation slavery as the engine of U.S. expansion across the continent. But, someone argued that it would connect Washington to slavery and the role of slavery in national expansion. No monument had done that before. So he decided to use Columbus instead.

In Greenough’s statue, there was a desire to hide some truths about Washington. I wonder if Adam Rex found that out, too? I’ve been having so much trouble trying to figure out why he put this statue in the book, at all. Then I saw on Twitter that Rex said “[W]e get all these ancient Greek-looking Presidents because we like to imagine our country is the Platonic ideal of democracy.” Is the statue--and that Indian--there to invite kids to think about the failings of our democracy and how statues contribute to those failings? 

I wish there was a page of “why we did this” information in the back of the book. It would have been so useful! You and I come into this book with a lot of knowledge about imperialism and how that plays out in children’s books with the endless mythologizing of American exceptionalism. I took a look online to see if anyone noted anything remotely like that in their review of the book, and nobody has. Perhaps that points to the need for a “why we did this” page. 

As our deep-dive into the statue shows, we tend to ask a lot of questions and we wish we didn’t have to do that! I think picture book teams have a terrific model for what-to-do with respect to providing readers with information. That model is Kevin Maillard and Juanita Martinez Neal’s Fry Bread. It has eight pages of notes! I think that’s the first time I’ve seen that, and it would help tremendously with books like The Next President. As we read the book we saw many places where we thought more information would have helped us understand what Messner and Rex were doing. Like with the page on President Buchanan. Can you tell our readers what we wrestled with there, Jean? 

Jean: The text about James Buchanan states that he was the only president who never married. The illustration shows him walking in close, if not intimate, conversation with another man. There’s a long history of speculation about whether Buchanan was gay. When we looked for photos of the man who was his partner, it was clear to us that Rex had drawn a likeness of William Rufus King. We think it would be especially helpful for LGBTQ+ readers to be aware that there’s some convincing scholarship that says Buchanan was gay, and that King, who served as a US Senator, was his long-time partner. We imagine a teacher thinking that a child can go find the information on their own, but that suggestion is fraught with peril. Some contemporary sources, and others from Buchanan’s time, contain expressions of homophobia that could be harmful. 

Debbie: Yes! The goal should be affirmation, right on the page! I think of the article, “The All Heterosexual World of Children’s Nonfiction: A Critical Content Analysis of LGBTQ Identities in Orbis Pictus Award Books, 1990-2017 by Thomas Crisp, Roberta Price Gardner, and Matheus Almeida. They have a section in their article called “Give Us Names: Looking for Queerness in LGBTQ-Identified Focal Subjects” where they write that heterosexual identities are promoted explicitly, while “a code of silence and invisibility often surrounds any inclusion of queer-identified people.” In their study of all those Orbis Pictus Award books, they also write (p. 260):

While it is not impossible for readers to recognize the codes embedded in these depictions, the authors of these children's books squarely place the burden on their readers, and ultimately reinscribe queer invisibility for those who are not able to decipher the textual clues, would rather not acknowledge, or who are unaware there is a need to acknowledge queer existences.

Those are powerful passages, and if Messner and Rex read this post, I hope they address the way they may be contributing to the invisibility that Crisp, Gardner, and Almeida note! I am guessing that Messner and Rex felt that Buchanan’s identity as a gay man is not universally seen, at present, as a fact and that may be why they did not include it explicitly in the text, but that decision is contradicted by the illustration of that very man, William Rufus King.

Jean: We also wonder what scholars, or parents, or children who are Asian American or Latinx wish had been included in the book, or whether lives of Black people could have been depicted outside of enslavement and work. But we’ll return now to our original goal of analyzing the absence of Native content in The Next President. As parents, aunties, and grandmothers of Native kids, we want books like this one to show Native people as more than just part of a statue onto which a white sculptor projected his dream of a White republic. We know teachers are going to be using this book to support social studies curricula. We also suspect that publishers will want more books like this one, on different topics. So we are at work on two resources that we think would be useful in providing historical facts while acknowledging the influence of Native people on US history. 

One is a series of land acknowledgements -- one for each president’s birthplace. We’re finding this one to be challenging for a variety of reasons. But we think it can support any curriculum about US presidents. The second resource is a kind of rejoinder to The Next President -- we’ll have brief facts about each president’s dealings with Native people (pre-Presidency, if possible, in keeping with Messner’s approach). We plan to have those available as soon as we can.

A brief note: we are aware that many people feel that Messner and Rex left out President 45, but he's shown on page 33 as a teenager.

As always, we welcome your comments.

__________

Note: "The All-Heterosexual World of Children's Nonfiction: A Critical Content Analysis of LGBTQ Identities in Orbis Pictus Award Books, 1990-2017" by Thomas Crisp, Robert Price Gardner, and Matheus Almeida came out in Children's Literature in Education (2018), 49, pages 246-263.

"Redscales" (a stand-in for R*edskins) in DINO-THANKSGIVING

Update from Debbie on Tuesday, October 18, 2022: Today I received an email from the editorial folks at Lerner. The page in Dino-Thanksgiving that shows the "Redscales" has been changed. In the second edition, the dino brothers hope the "Rippers" win. The team colors are changed from maroon and gold to red and light blue (or maybe that is gray). Similar changes have been made throughout the earlier book (Dino-Football). Changes were made to all ebook formats, too. I'm grateful to everyone at Lerner who participated in the conversation and subsequent changes and feel confident they will carry this moment forward in their future work.  

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Last week I went to a local library to gather Thanksgiving books to see what I might see (patterns, etc). The library uses a turkey sticker on the spine. Rather than look up books, I scanned the top shelves in about half of the children's E section of the library, and on the "new books" shelf--pulling any book with a turkey sticker on it--until my arms were full. That was 19 books.

I got home and started reading, sorting, making notes, etc. This post is about one page in one of the books. The books have an array of problems but this one stands out because it came out this year (2020). The book is Dino-Thanksgiving written by Lisa Wheeler, illustrated by Barry Gott. In it, dinosaurs are gathering for a Thanksgiving feast. They do the sorts of things people do on Thanksgiving Day--like watching a football game:

That's a photo of the page. Those red arrows are by me, drawing attention to "Redscales" and the Pteros shown in a maroon and gold helmet and maroon and gold jerseys. There's no mistaking the parallel. The "Redscales" are a stand-in for the Washington DC professional football team. 

I assume the author and illustrator and art director and all the people in-house at Lerner Books thought it was cool or clever, but it isn't. I did a post about it on Facebook and tagged Lerner. The next morning, they replied, saying:

We appreciate those who have pointed out this insensitivity. We are changing the team name in reprints, and we’re discussing changes to the art as well. And we’re doubling down on our commitment to watch for things like this during our production process, and do better in the future.

I'm glad to know they're going to change it--but the question I and others have is--how did that happen in the first place? Resistance to mascots is national news! How did so many people involved with this book miss that problem? 

I'm sharing this with readers of AICL to encourage you to use social media when you see problems like this. Tag publishers when you speak up. Tag me if the content is specific to Native people, and I'll amplify what you say. 

Highly Recommended: The Cabin, by Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson

The Cabin

Written by Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson

Published in Rural Voices: 15 Authors Challenge Assumptions about Small Town America

Edited by Nora Shalaway Carpenter; Publisher: Candlewick Press, 2020

Review Status: Highly Recommended

Reviewer: Debbie Reese

I grew up at Nambé Pueblo. Back in the 60s, our home was one of the handful that was along the washboarded dirt road that ended at our waterfalls. During those years the US government constructed a black top road so construction workers could build a dam to control the river that fed the valley. Many days I'd go to the river with my grandma to bring buckets of water to the house.  I spent many days and nights with my grandma. Her house and the one my parents built for their growing family were connected at one end (forming an L shape). Our front doors were not that far apart but I was a scaredy cat! After spending a day with Gram, I'd just sleep with her rather than dash across the yard from her door to ours. Too dark outside! Who knows what might get me?! Staying the night with her meant I'd stay in bed until she got the wood stove going. From under the quilts I could watch her adjust the damper till she had the fire just where she wanted it. Then, she'd call to me and I'd sit by the warm stove as she made some oatmeal and toast for me. 

All of that is in my mind this morning because last night, I read Hopson's "The Cabin." From the first word to the last ones, I was right there--in that cabin, with her teenaged protagonist. Of her story, Hopson writes:

My short story ‘The cabin’ is about a young Inupiaq teenager who encounters something strange while trapping.

As that teen wonders what she's hearing outside the cabin, she thinks it might be a bear. She's got a rifle. I'm reminded of the time when a bear was around the pueblo, getting into corn. Some of us kids were afraid to be outside, playing! Our parents were worried, too. Some got their rifles out, just in case they needed them. 

Life on a reservation, in a remote area, was wonderful. I have nothing to complain about. What I have is terrific memories, brought forth by reading My Cabin. It resonates with me on many levels. There's elders in it--like my Gram--so that's one key piece of it but there's so much more! 

You should definitely order a copy of Rural Voices! Hopson's story is excellent, and I look forward to reading the others in the book. I highly recommend My Cabin. And I wonder what else she's working on? If you're interested in knowing more about her, head over to her website. On her "about" page, you'll read that she's a tribally enrolled Inupiaq. 

Highly Recommended: APPLE (SKIN TO THE CORE) by Eric Gansworth

Monday, October 12 is Indigenous Peoples' Day. There will be many virtual events taking place. Top of my list is the one from Arizona State University. Eric Gansworth will open their day of events. When you click on through to register for his lecture (at noon, Central Time) you will see that Gansworth was selected to deliver the 2020 lecture in the prestigious Simon Ortiz Red Ink Indigenous Speaker Series. People in Native studies or who study the writing and scholarship of Native people will recognize names of people who have given that lecture. In the field, being selected to give that lecture has tremendous significance. Videos for most of the talks are available at the site. If you are new to your work in learning about Native writing, make time to watch and study all of them! 

Gansworth will be talking about his new book, Apple (Skin to the Core). Across the hundreds of  Native Nations, our life experiences differ. Census information has shown that about half of us grow up in suburban or urban areas. I'm glad to see books set in those spaces. 

Some of us grew up on our homelands or on reservations. Native-authored books for children and young adults that reflect a reservation sense-of-place with the integrity that Gansworth brings to his writing, are rare. On Indigenous Peoples Day, I'll be giving a talk, too. My audience will be Pueblo peoples. I expect a large segment of the audience to be people who are living on their Pueblo homelands. And so, I'm emphasizing books like Apple (Skin to the Core) that will speak directly to a reservation-based experience. Of course, everyone should read it and Gansworth's other two books, If I Ever Get Out of Here and Give Me Some Truth. 

As I read through his memoir, I linger over some of what I read... I want to tell you about this poem, or what I see on that page, but that's not the thrust of this post. A review is forthcoming. Today, I celebrate the gifts that Eric Gansworth gives to us, in every word he writes, in each poem, story, and book. 

Bio from Gansworth's website:

Eric Gansworth (Sˑha-weñ na-saeˀ), a writer and visual artist, is an enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation.  He was raised at the Tuscarora Nation, near Niagara Falls, New York.  Currently, he is a Professor of English and Lowery Writer-in-Residence at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York.

And a video about the book and the word "apple":

Highly Recommended: "What's an Indian Woman to Do?" in WHEN THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD WAS SUBDUED, OUR SONGS CAME THROUGH

What's an Indian Woman to Do?

Written by Marcie Rendon

Published in

When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through

Edited by Joy Harjo; Published in 2020

Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company

Review Status: Highly Recommended

Reviewer: Debbie Reese

****

 
The first three lines in Rendon's poem, "What's an Indian Woman to Do?" are these:

what's an indian woman to do

when the white girls act more indian

than the indian women do?

From there we read about the Indian woman's ex-husband and what he expected her to do. The poem doesn't tell us this explicitly, but to me, that expectation is based on stereotypes he had acquired. We read about the Indian woman's mother and her work and how their life meant they didn't have time to make the sorts of things that white girls make and sell at powwows--and how they use what they think is a Native-sounding name and start using a reservation accent... And that bit about them correcting the Indian woman's use of Native language... What they are doing is claiming a Native identity.  

In the introduction to When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, Joy Harjo writes (p. 15): 

"Poems like Marcie Rendon's playful "What's an Indian Woman to Do?" both worry the edges of mixed identity and strongly claim Indigenous belonging."

Rendon's poem is about white women claiming to be Native, how they treat Native women, how they are embraced by others, and what that all feels like to a Native woman. If you follow Native people on social media, you likely know that we talk about sketchy claims to Native identity. From time to time, the national news will cover someone that has made a false claim to an identity. Most recently there were many articles about Jessica Krug a white woman who claimed to be Black. 

A few weeks before that, there were articles about "Sciencing_Bi"--a Native person created by a white woman named Beth Ann McLaughlin. That case was unusual. More often, we see a white person claiming to be Native in the ways that Jessica Krug was doing with her claim to being Black.

In Native communities, the word "pretendian" circulates as a term to describe someone who is making a fraudulent claim to being Native. Harjo addresses this issue in the Introduction to When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through (page 3):

Because we respect indigenous nations' right to determine who is a tribal member, we have included only indigenous-nations voices that are enrolled tribal members or are known and work directly within their respective communities. We understand that this decision may not be a popular one. We editors do not want to arbitrate identity, though in such a project we are confronted with the task. We felt we should leave this question to indigenous communities. 

When I launched American Indians in Children's Literature in 2006, I had already been studying children's literature about Native peoples for over a decade. In that capacity I, too, was confronted with the task of determining whether someone was Native or not. Generally, I take writers at their word when they claim to be Native. If an individual says they're enrolled or a citizen of a specific nation, I relax. I assume they are telling the truth. If they're not enrolled or a citizen, I take a closer look at their claim. Are they, as Harjo said, known in or working with their community? As you might know, all of this can get messy real quick! 

When someone's claim to an identity is questioned, some people (usually the person and their friends) quickly move to charge the questioner as "identity police." That label shifts the focus from the person making the claim to the person who is asking the question. The latter is criticized. In some cases, that has been me--Debbie, a Native woman. What, then, am I to do? To borrow Rendon's words, What's an Indian Woman to do?

Marcie Rendon's poem is about being a Native woman and seeing people who are not Native be embraced by society as if they are, in fact, Native. Can you see why Marcie Rendon's poem, What's an Indian Woman to Do?" might resonate with me? People trust what I write here on AICL and in my book chapters and articles. When a new book comes out and the author asserts a Native identity on the book jacket and in promotional materials, it is clear that their editor and publisher believe their claim. Have they vetted that claim? The care I take in studying and recommending (or not recommending) a book is important to a lot of people. I do the best I can do, given what I know about pretendianism, and the complexities of Native identity. Harjo continues:

And yet, indigenous communities are human communities, and ethics of identity are often compromised by civic and blood politics. The question "Who is Native?" has become more and more complex as culture lines and bloodlines have thinned and mixed in recent years. We also have had to contend with an onslaught of what we call "Pretendians," that is, nonindigenous people assuming a Native identity. When individuals assert themselves as Native when they are not culturally indigenous, and if they do not understand their tribal nation's history or participate in their tribal nation's society, who benefits? Not the people or communities of the identity being claimed.

One of the strengths of Harjo's work on this anthology is that teachers and librarians can learn from the many things she says in the introduction but there are other things to learn. Learn the names of the poets she's included. Learn the names of their tribal nations. For each poet she includes, Harjo provides information you need. Here's the entry for Rendon:

MARCIE RENDON (1952–), Anishinaabe, an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, is a poet, playwright, and community activist. Rendon’s work includes two novels, most recently Girl Gone Missing (2019), as well as four children’s nonfiction books. She received the Loft Literary Center’s 2017 Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship. She is a producer and creative director at the Raving Native Theater in Minnesota.

As I read that entry and think about what it says, I think I know what Marcie Rendon's answer to "What's an Indian Woman to Do?" has been. She counters the claims to Native identity by being an activist, a writer, producer, and creative director whose works and words can help you see who we are--for real. 

Get a copy of When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through and make room in your budget to get books by Native writers in Harjo's book.   

Recommended! nibi is water; nibi aawon nbiish, by Joanne Robertson; translated by Shirley Williams and Isadore Toulouse

nibi is water, nibi aawon nbiish

Written and illustrated by Joanne Robertson (

Translated by Shirley Williams and Isadore Toulouse

Published in 2020

Publisher: Second Story Press

Reviewed by Debbie Reese

Status: Highly Recommended

Last month I (Debbie) was in Toronto at the 2020 Ontario Library Association's Super Conference. There, I spoke (and ate, and laughed--a lot!) with Native women. At one of these moments, they were asking me if I'd seen Joanne Robertson's new board book yet. I had not, but as I listened to them talk about it... to the delight in their voices, I suspected it would be something I'd like, too. 

nibi is water, nibi aawan nbiish arrived at my house and sure enough, it lifted my day! The nuts and bolts, so to speak, are this: it is what some call a "concept" book. It tells us several characteristics of some thing... like an information book, but for very young readers. 

Robertson's book is about water and the many ways that a child experiences it. You can swim or bathe in it, you can drink it, you can use it to wash your clothes... But Robertson reminds us that we need to care for it, that we have to respect, love, and protect it because, as the final page tells us, water is life. 

If you got Robertson's The Water Walker you'll recognize the walkers from that book, in nibi is water, nibi aawan nbiish (note: keep your eyes open... they're in the book, more than once--this is the sort of detail that kids adore!).

I'll state the obvious: this is a bilingual book. On every page, you'll find Ojibwe words and at the end of the book, a pronunciation guide. Get a copy and come back here. Submit a comment! What do you see? What speaks to you? 

Recommended: MARY AND THE TRAIL OF TEARS by Andrea L. Rogers

Mary and the Trail of Tears: A Cherokee Removal Survival Story

Written by Andrea L. Rogers (Cherokee); illustrated by Matt Forsyth

Published in 2020

Publisher: Stone Arch Books (Capstone)

Reviewed by Debbie Reese

Status: Highly Recommended

Andrea L. Rogers is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her book, Mary and the Trail of Tears: A Cherokee Removal Survival Story came out on February 1, 2020. I've read it and I've followed conversations about it amongst citizens of the Cherokee Nation and am hoping for a review from a professor, soon. In the meantime, I want to make sure people order it for their children, or their classroom, or their library.

Highly Recommended: WE ARE WATER PROTECTORS by Carole Lindstrom and Michaela Goade

We Are Water Protectors written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade is due out in 2020. 

Today's post is the twitter thread I did yesterday (September 23, 2019) about We Are Water Protectors, an exquisite book by two Indigenous women: Carole Lindstrom is of Anishinaabe/Métis descent and is tribally enrolled with the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe. Michaela Goade is of Tlingit descent and is tribally enrolled with the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. 

****

I love seeing threads about new books by Native writers! @elissawashuta has one going right now. As you see, she's added WE ARE WATER PROTECTORS by @CaroleLindstrom, illustrated by @MichaelaGoade, to her thread.

Elissa Washuta

✔@elissawashuta

WE ARE WATER PROTECTORS, a picture book by Carole Lindstrom & Michaela Goade, is coming out in March 2020https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250203557 …

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7:51 AM - Sep 23, 2019

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I saw Carole when I was in DC on Sept 7 at the Indigenous Peoples' Day Curriculum Teach-In, held at the National Museum of the American Indian. She gave me an ARC (advanced reader's edition) of her book. 

WE ARE WATER PROTECTORS is due out March 17, 2010 from Roaring Book Press (Macmillan). I'll have a review of it at American Indians in Children's Literature but for now, I'm over here telling you to pre-order this exquisite book. (us.macmillan.com/books/97812502…) 

Those of you who follow Native resistance to exploitation may recall an iconic photo taken in 2013 when Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided a camp of Native people who were there to protect their water from drilling. (newsmaven.io/indiancountryt…)

Similar photos were taken at Standing Rock in 2016. Here's one taken by @dallasgoldtooth.

In the photographs of these moments, we see a Native point of view as Water Protectors stand in the face of exploitation.

On the cover of Lindstrom and Goade's book we see the person holding the feather, but behind her... see all the people holding hands? Some are children.

In the photographs we see armed police; in the art we see what those armed police saw: unarmed people--young and old--standing together to protect their water.

Both, the photo and Goade's art... take my breath away.