John Herrington's MISSION TO SPACE is exceptional!

Regular readers of American Indians in Children's Literature know that I emphasize several points when reviewing children's or young adult books, especially:

1. Is the book by a Native author or illustrator?
2. Does the book, in some way, include something to tell readers that we are sovereign nations?
3. Is the book tribally specific, and is the tribally specific information accurate?
4. Is it set in the present day? If it is historical in structure, does it use present tense verbs that tell readers the Native peoples being depicted are part of today's society?

John Herrington's Mission to Space has all of that... and more! Herrington is an astronaut. He was on space shuttle Endeavor, in 2002. Mission to Space begins with his childhood, playing with rockets, and ends with Endeavor's safe return to Earth.

Here's the cover:

That is Herrington on the cover. Here's a page from inside that tells readers he is Chickasaw.

While he and the crew were waiting for Endeavor to blast off, the governor and lieutenant governor of the Chickasaw Nation presented a blanket to NASA.

Those are two of the pages specific to Herrington being Chickasaw, but there's photos of him, training to be an astronaut, too. There's one of him, for example in a swimming pool, clad in his gear. And there's one that is way cool, of his eagle feather and flute, floating inside the International Space Station:

I absolutely love this book. There is nothing... NOTHING like it.

Native writer? Yes.
Sovereignty? Yes.
Tribally specific? Yes.
Present day? Yes.

The final two pages are about the Chickasaw language. In four columns that span two pages, there are over 20 words in English, followed by the word in Chickasaw, its pronunciation, and its literal description. And, of course, there's a countdown... in English and in Chickasaw.

Published in 2016 by the Chickasaw Nation's White Dog Press, they created a terrific video about the book. You can order it at their website. It is $14 for paperback; $16 for hardcover.

I highly recommend it! Hands down, it is the best book I've seen all year long.

Debbie--have you seen RUNS WITH COURAGE by Joan M. Wolf?

Several people have written to ask if I've seen Runs With Courage by Joan M. Wolf, due out on October 1 of 2016 from Sleeping Bear Press.

Here's the synopsis:

Ten-year-old Four Winds is a young Lakota girl caught up in the changes brought about by her people's forced move to the reservation. Set in the Dakota Territory, it is the year 1880. Four Winds has been taken away from her family and brought to a boarding school run by whites. It is here she is taught English and learns how to assimilate into white culture. But soon she discovers that the teachers at this school are not interested in assimilation but rather in erasing her culture. On the reservation, Four Winds had to fight against starvation. Now she must fight to hold on to who she is.

Given that information, my guess is that "Four Winds" is going to Carlisle.

The synopsis, which may or may not be written by the author, is interesting for what it says about assimilation and erasing the character's culture.

AICL has a copy of the book, sent to us by a reader (not the author or publisher) and we'll review it as soon as we can. If you look at the growing list of books in the "Debbie--have you seen" category, you'll see that we've got a lot to read. I hope, perhaps naively, that there will be one in the category that we'll be able to recommend.

THE MASK THAT SANG by Susan Currie

Susan Currie's The Mask That Sang was released on September 6, 2016, from Second Story Press. She dedicates the book to her "birth aunt, Bev Huzzard, who handed me the gift of my own identity."

That dedication--referencing a birth aunt and identity--prompted me to visit Currie's biography at the Second Story website. There, I read that:

Susan is an adopted person who made contact with a birth aunt a few years ago and subsequently learned about her Cayuga heritage. The Mask That Sang grew out of the experience of discovering those roots, and of learning that her grandmother attended residential school. 

On goodreads "Ask the Author" page, Currie writes that:

My most recent book, "The Mask That Sang," was inspired by my own experience of learning that I was Haudenosaunee. Because I was adopted, I did not know about my roots until I went searching for answers, and made contact with a birth aunt. She shared with me about my Cayuga heritage. It changed my life!  

And on her website, Currie writes that:

An important part of my history has to do with the fact that I am adopted. I have had a wonderful upbringing with my parents, Jean and Martin, and with my two brothers, David and Mike. As an adult I felt I wanted to know more about my own unique history. Following some detective work, I made contact with my amazing birth aunt, Bev (my birth mother, Louise, had passed away). She then provided me with the great gift of my own personal history. I was astonished and thrilled to learn about my own Haudenosaunee background. I am of Cayuga descent. My grandmother, Marjorie Hill, grew up at Six Nations and attended residential school in Brantford.

My heart aches for all the Native people who were taken from their parents and communities when they were infants or children.  We don't know the details of Currie's adoption. She may not have been part of that forceful removal. We do know, however, that the governments of the United States and Canada were determined to turn Native people into White people. These governments were determined to undermine our nations and our sovereignty. Some government programs, like the boarding schools (residential schools in Canada) are becoming known.

There were other efforts, too, by which Native children were taken from their communities. Adoption and child welfare service is one by which thousands of Native children were removed from their homes. In Canada, newspapers report on the Sixties Scoop, a term used to refer to the adoption of First Nations and Métis children in Canada, from the 1960s to the mid-1980s. The reports include interviews with adults who are being reunited with their families. The accounts are searing. In Indigenous Writes, Chelsea Vowel writes that (p. 88):

When these people want to learn more about their culture, they have to wade through so many inaccuracies that it can feel impossible at times to reconnect.

As Currie's biography indicates, she was adopted and only recently became aware of her Cayuga heritage and that her grandmother was in residential school. As I read her book, I had empathy for Cass (her main character) and the struggle she was going through, but I also feel that the parts of the story about the mask sound very much like ones written by people who aren't Native.

Here's the synopsis for the book:

Cass and her mom have always stood on their own against the world. Then Cass learns she had a grandmother, one who was never part of her life, one who has just died and left her and her mother the first house they could call their own. But with it comes more questions than answers: Why is her Mom so determined not to live there? Why was this relative kept so secret? And what is the unusual mask, forgotten in a drawer, trying to tell her? Strange dreams, strange voices, and strange incidents all lead Cass closer to solving the mystery and making connections she never dreamed she had.

Remember: The Mask That Sang is inspired by what Currie learned as an adult.

Currie said that she found out about her identity through research. Cass, however, finds out because of a mask she finds in a dresser drawer in a home that is left to her and her mom by her grandmother, who has passed away. That grandmother is likely based on Currie's own grandmother, the one who went to residential school. In The Mask That Sang, we learn that Cass's mother was abandoned by her own mother, and she ended up in the foster care system (p. 10):

My mother abandoned me as a baby, she gave me up to Children's Aid and never tried to find me. I've been in over twenty foster homes, and I've lived at about as many addresses since.

It makes me wonder if Currie herself was abandoned by her birth mother.  Currie's grandmother, at residential school, would not have been able to maintain her Cayuga ways of being. She may have lost touch with the Cayuga community. From Currie's website, we know she gave birth to Currie's mother (she is deceased) and two other children. When Currie found that birth aunt, Bev, she began learning about her Cayuga heritage from her, but I wonder what Bev's sources are? Did she reconnect with the Six Nations community? Did she relearn ways of being Cayuga?

I pose that question because of what I've read about the ways that the Haudenosaunee peoples (this includes the nations in the US and Canada) treat the masks. Back in 1991, in their I is not for Indian bibliography, Naomi Caldwell Wood and Lisa Mitten, president and secretary of the American Indian Library Association wrote about Welwyn Wilton Katz's False Face. They said:

"Katz conjures up a ridiculously evil power that is supposed to inhabit the false face mask and alter the personalities of characters who attempt to possess the mask. This personalities of characters who attempt to possess the mask. This goes beyond the wild fantasies of a creative author. False face masks are an integral part of traditional Iroquois religion practised today on the very reserve that Katz describes so well. Her description of the mask as an absolute evil amounts to religious intolerance and goes far in fostering the conception of native, non-Christian religions as savage pagan rituals. A very harmful book."

Currie does that, too. In The Mask That Sang, Cass enters the house that had belonged to her grandmother. When she goes inside she hears "a mischievous purr" (p. 23) that becomes a hum and then a song as she nears the dresser where the mask is. It seems that the song she hears tells her that she won't be lonely anymore.

When she finally opens the drawer and unwraps the mask, she screams. Mr. Gregor, a neighbor they've just met, tells them it is a false face. Cass's mom says it is an ugly face, and Mr. Gregor replies that it is an Iroquois healing mask and that there's a large Aboriginal population in their new neighborhood. He asks if they're Aboriginal and they say no, because at this point in the story, they don't know they're Native. Cass thinks, though, that she somehow feels like she recognizes the mask.

That night at bedtime, Cass opens the drawer and looks the mask in the eye, telling it that she thinks she likes it, but "let's not go too far" (p. 37). The voices in the mask sing to her:

Too late, the voice seemed to sing, filled with satisfaction at their own funny selves, pleased with the mischief they had played while hiding and being found. Now they had a new playmate, and they darted around Cass as if they were strings binding her. But friendly strings, friendlier than what waited tomorrow.

"Tomorrow" is a reference to Cass's first day of school. She's dreading it because at previous schools, she's been bullied. As she drifts off to sleep, the mask's earlier message of her not being alone, is chanting as she falls asleep and into a dream where she and others are trapped in a school "like animals" who are "being groomed for something" and who are not "free creatures anymore, because free meant wild" (p. 40). She wakes, realizing the mask is singing to the children in her dream, comforting them. They were also telling Cass to go to school, and to be brave, chanting and "looping about Cass like an incantation."

As the story continues, the voices speak to her at key moments. They tell her to stick up for Degan Hill, a Cayuga boy she meets at school. She does, and the two become friends. He tells her about his aunt, who is a healer and has dreams. He tells her that dreams, spirits, and healing are part of their traditional ways. She tells him about the mask and he tells her that his aunt says they're tricky, that they move stuff, turn lights on and off, and that the masks can go either good or bad. She takes him to her house to show it to him but it is gone. Her mother has pawned it to get money to buy a computer.

The story, from there, is about recovering the mask. Cass continues to have dreams, and, Cass and Degan use the dreams to find the mask. At one point, Cass is feeling sorry for herself and tells her mother that her life would have been better if Cass had never been born. She feels intense rage, brought on by the mask. It music is now "deadly and dangerous" (p. 120). Her dreams also include the children she saw in the first dream. One night, she sees them, trapped by fire.

The ways that Currie is writing about the masks feels wrong. Turning lights on and off? That sounds more like a poltergeist story, and the use of some words, like incantation, puts the masks--as presented by Currie--into an inappropriate framework of Eurocentric magic and supernatural stories. It reminds me of what I saw in Shadows Cast By Stars. That author, Catherine Knutsson, is similar to Currie in this way: both came to know their Native heritage as adults. Knutsson's book has paranormal qualities to, it, too that feel inappropriate. I saw similar problems with dreams in Tara White's Where I Belong.

I really want to read stories from people like Currie and Knuttson and White, who come to know their heritage, later in life, but for me, they lose their potential and value when they sound just like the stories that White people write. Their stories can inform readers about racist programs and histories, but when those stories enter this magical and mystical thread, they misinform and even denigrate the very people their stories are about. These writers have not moved beyond the inaccuracies that Vowel referenced in Indigenous Writes.

On goodreads, Currie writes that she's working on another book:

I am beginning to work on a new story exploring the residential school experience. At present, it is starting to shape into a bit of a time travel story in which two parallel events are occurring - in one timeline, we follow a young girl in residential school who is fighting to hang onto her culture, and in the other, we follow a young girl in the foster care system who is searching for her missing mother. How these two timelines come together, and how the girls become friends, is tied up in visions and magic and the power of traditions....

Seeing "magic" there points, again, to a framework that I think is Eurocentric. I do think a time travel story that explores these two different periods of time would be one I'd want to read but I hope that Currie picks up a copy of Love Beyond Space, Body, and Time to see how other Native writers write that sort of storyline. That book is exquisite. It isn't for children. Older teens, yes. The full title is Love Beyond Space, Body, and Time: An LGBT and Two-Spirit Anthology. I've not yet reviewed it for AICL, but did a Storify on it a few days ago. In fact, anyone who wants to write Native characters ought to read that book. I highly recommend it.

In sum: I do not recommend Susan Currie's The Mask That Sang.

____________________
For further reading, see:

Haudenosaunee Confederacy's policy on false face masks, published in 1995 in Akwesasne Notes. 

Cayuga Museum Receives Replica Wampum Belt for Returning Haudenosaunee Spiritual Objects, published in 2013 at Indian Country Today. 

Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada by Chelsea Vowel, published in 2016 by Portage & Main Press.

Beverly Slapin's review of PRAIRIE DOG SONGS: THE KEY TO SAVING NORTH AMERICA'S GRASSLANDS by Susan L. Roth

Editor's Note: Beverly Slapin submitted this review of Susan L. Roth's Prairie Dog Songs. It may not be used elsewhere without her written permission. All rights reserved. Copyright 2016. Slapin is currently the publisher/editor of De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children.

~~~~~

Roth, Susan L., and Cindy Trumbore, Prairie Dog Song: The Key to Saving North America’s Grasslands, illustrated by Susan L. Roth. Lee & Low, 2016; grades 1-6

Based on the cumulative song, “Green Grass Grows All Around,” each double-page spread in Roth's book includes a verse from the song, a collage, and information that focuses on prairie dogs, environmental destruction of the grassland ecosystem and the return to biodiversity. Younger readers are encouraged to engage with the art and sing along with the lyrics on each page (and music and separate lyrics in the back matter). The text for older readers is more informative.

Roth’s signature illustrations, rendered in paper and fabric collage, will especially appeal to young children. Each page-and-a-half spread reflects the daytime and nighttime skies and clouds in mostly blues and greens, and the earth in mostly browns and greens. As well, the animals—from the littlest prairie dogs to the huge buffalo—hold their places in this delicate ecosystem, and it appears that Roth has carefully placed each blade of grass as well.

According to the publicity sheet:

Prairie Dog Song traces the history of the grasslands from the first settlers who arrived in the 1800s to the scientists working to preserve them. For thousands of years, grasses covered the area of North America, stretching from the south of Canada to the north of Mexico and creating what is still one of our most important and wide-reaching ecosystems. The tiny prairie dog was its caretaker, burrowing into the ground and keeping the soil rich enough to sustain many other species. But what happens when we humans chase away those tiny caretakers?

Unfortunately, this otherwise engaging picture book is fatally flawed, in that there are only four short references—dismissive ones at that—to the Indigenous peoples who, despite the many attempts of the settlers and government forces to dislodge them, continue to return and maintain the land. All of these references appear in the text for older readers; there is nothing in the lyrics or illustrations that refers to Native peoples.

This text is towards the middle of the book (unpaginated):

For thousands of years, prairie dogs lived alongside the Native peoples of the grasslands. Some Native groups survived by gathering plants and hunting the big animals, including bison, that ate the rich grass near prairie dogs’ burrows. Other groups were both hunters and farmers, growing crops such as corn, beans, and squash.

Then, in the 1800s, the United States government began forcing Native peoples from the grasslands so the land could be offered to settlers. The settlers saw fine, fertile areas where they could graze their cattle and horses and grow crops. The covered the land with fields, ranches, houses, and roads that destroyed the prairie dogs’ territory.

Within sixty years of the arrival of farmers and ranchers, most of the prairie dogs were dead. The settlers did not understand the role prairie dogs played in keeping the grasses healthy.... Prairie dogs, the animals that ate them, and the animals that lived with them began to disappear. So did the bison, which were hunted for their skins. (emphasis mine)

There are also two short and strange references in the back matter timeline:

(1) Prehistory: In what is now Janos Biosphere Reserve, in Chihuahua, Mexico, live hunter-gatherers who leave behind petroglyphs and arrowheads. (2) 1689: Military outpost established to protect Janos from Apache raids, although Apache still venture frequently into area. 

This “disappearance” or dismissal of Native peoples in a discussion of the history of the land and a particular ecosystem is nothing less than a justification of colonialism and genocide. None of the major reviewers—Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly and School Library Journa1 gave this book starred reviews—seems to have noticed this, and children will not, either. Unless they are Native children.

So it seems to be fitting to end this review with Indigenous peoples have the last word. The following is part of a statement released by the Assembly of First Nations in Canada:

Indigenous peoples are caretakers of Mother Earth and realize and respect her gifts of water, air and fire. First Nations peoples have a special relationship with the earth and all living things in it. This relationship is based on a profound spiritual connection to Mother Earth that guided indigenous peoples to practice reverence, humility and reciprocity. It is also based on the subsistence needs and values extending back thousands of years. Hunting, gathering, and fishing to secure food includes harvesting food for self, family, the elderly, widows, the community, and for ceremonial purposes. Everything is taken and used with the understanding that we take only what we need, and we must use great care and be aware of how we take and how much of it so that future generations will not be put in peril.

For the earlier grade levels noted, Prairie Dog Song is not recommended; for older students who may be learning how to read critically or for college students taking courses on deconstructing texts in children’s literature, maybe.

—Beverly Slapin

SWEET HOME ALASKA by Carole Estby Dagg

Earlier this year, several people wrote to ask me about Carole Estby Dagg's Sweet Home Alaska, a story set in Alaska, in 1934, about the Matanuska Colony (also called the Palmer Colony). The map to the right shows you where the colony was.

Published by Penguin Random House (one of the Big Five publishers in the U.S.), Dagg's book came out in February of 2016. It is pitched at middle grade children.

Here's the synopsis for Sweet Home Alaska:

This exciting pioneering story, based on actual events, introduces readers to a fascinating chapter in American history, when FDR set up a New Deal colony in Alaska to give loans and land to families struggling during the Great Depression.

Terpsichore can’t wait to follow in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s footsteps . . . now she just has to convince her mom. It’s 1934, and times are tough for their family. To make a fresh start, Terpsichore’s father signs up for President Roosevelt’s Palmer Colony project, uprooting them from Wisconsin to become pioneers in Alaska. Their new home is a bit of a shock—it’s a town still under construction in the middle of the wilderness, where the residents live in tents and share a community outhouse. But Terpsichore’s not about to let first impressions get in the way of this grand adventure. Tackling its many unique challenges with her can-do attitude, she starts making things happen to make Alaska seem more like home. Soon, she and her family are able to start settling in and enjoying their new surroundings—everyone except her mother, that is. So, in order to stay, Terpsichore hatches a plan to convince her that it’s a wonderful—and civilized—place to live . . . a plan that’s going to take all the love, energy, and Farmer Boy expertise Terpsichore can muster.

As the synopsis indicates, the story is based on fact. President Roosevelt did create the Palmer Colony project for people to make a fresh start. The synopsis tells us that Dagg's story an "exciting pioneering" one, but anytime I see "pioneering" in the context of stories like this, I wonder about the people whose lands were being made available to those "pioneers."

In her author's note, Dagg writes (p. 290):

A notable omission in accounts I read of the Palmer Colony was reference to the people who were in Alaska for thousands of years before the colonists: the various Eskimo, Aleut, Athabaskan, and other Indian tribes. Since I married into a part-Native family, I was concerned about this omission, but finally decided not to create contacts with Native peoples if the colonists themselves did not mention them. However, I hope as many readers as possible will visit the Anchorage Museum to learn more about the original colonists of Alaska.

I'm curious about the "part-Native family." Are the people she's referring to as "part-Native" citizens of their tribal nation? Generally used, "part Native" means that someone in your ancestry was, or is, a Native person from a specific tribal nation. Quite often, though, people who use "part-Native" aren't aware that stating a Native identity goes hand-in-hand with being a citizen of that nation. This citizenship is not about being "part" Native. If you're a tribal citizen, you're a tribal citizen, period.

I'm uneasy with the phrase "the original colonists of Alaska." Alaska Natives were not "original colonists." They are the first peoples of that land. Their homelands were colonized--in this case--by the families who were part of this federal project. I anticipate some people will think that I'm being hypercritical in pointing to "original colonists" as problematic, but it is important that we pay attention to words and what they convey. If we were to accept Dagg's description of Aleut, Athabaskan, and other Indian tribes as "original colonists" we start down a slope that says it wasn't their homeland from the start. That it belonged to... nobody, and therefore, any rights they have to that land can be dismissed.

And, Dagg's suggestion that readers visit the Anchorage Museum... It makes me wonder if she had Native readers in mind. She was probably thinking of white kids.

An appropriate aside: Not long ago I read a spot-on comic by Ricardo Caté of Kewa (Santo Domingo) Pueblo. He has been doing Without Reservations for several years. The one I'm thinking of is of a Native kid in a museum asking something like "what kind of a field trip is this?! We have all this stuff at home." Biting, and brilliant, too.

Back to Dagg's book...

Who were the "pioneers" involved with the Palmer Project? People who were living in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in 1934. The Palmer Museum has this info:

To be chosen from the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, only "honest-to-God" farmers, couples between the ages of 25 and 40 with Scandinavian backgrounds would be considered. In exchange for a $3,000, 30-year loan, each family would be given a 40-acre tract of land, a house, a barn, a well, and an out-building. Those families that chose tracts with poor soil conditions and hilly landscape were given 80 acres. In all 203 families were chosen for the colony.

Dagg's character, Trip (short for Terpsichore), and her family are one of those families. When Dagg and her sisters learn about the plan to move there, here's what they say (p. 5)

“I'm not living in an igloo!" That was Cally, shaking her head in horror, which made her ringlets bob. “I’m not eating whale blubber!” That was Polly. Her ringlets bobbed too.

They are, in short, putting forth information they hold about Alaska Native homes and foods, and, they're rejecting it. That passage tells us that, although Dagg chose not to create Native people for her characters to interact with, she didn't leave Native peoples out altogether. She introduced stereotypes, but left them intact. That was an opportunity for her to push back on them, but she didn't. Indeed, if she'd had Native peoples in mind as she developed this book, she could have created Native characters who could, in fact, push back on the information that Cally and Polly have in their heads. What she did do, is have Trip's dad say that they're not going to the Arctic Circle, and that the Matanuska Valley is much like northern Wisconsin. This, I assume, is sufficient to tell the girls that they won't be living in an igloo or eating whale blubber, but it leaves exotic ideas about Alaska Natives intact.

Actually getting to Alaska means getting there by ship. As they're boarding, someone sings a song Trip recognizes, but they change the lyrics (p. 44):

Terpsichore recognized the tune. It was Gene Autry’s version of “Springtime in the Rockies,” but they had changed the words. Terpsichore laughed along with the crowd at the new words: “When it’s springtime in Alaska and it’s ninety-nine below . . . Where the berries grow like pumpkins and a cabbage fills a truck . . . We want to make a new start somewhere without delay. So, here we are, Alaska, AND WE HAVE COME TO STAY!”

Curious about the song, I looked it up and so far didn't find those lyrics. The first line is easy to find but the rest, I think, is Dagg's own writing. Reading the words "we have come to stay" may seem jovial and innocuous to some, but to me, they're pretty aggressive. Music is a big part of Sweet Home Alaska. The family has a tough go of it once they're there, but at the end, they sing "Home Sweet Home." They're there to stay. Again, this may seem innocuous, but ending with that song tells readers that, indeed, they were there "TO STAY."

Though a lot of people are going to love Dagg's book and its echoes of Little House, I think it is worse than Little House because it was written in the last few years. Dagg's editor is Nancy Paulsen. The creation, publication, and marketing of Sweet Home Alaska tells us that writers like Dagg, and editors like Nancy Paulsen, have a long way to go.

I do not recommend Sweet Home Alaska. 

And, I do not recommend The Smell of Other People's Houses, either.

Note (April 18, 2016): Thank you, anon, for letting me know that, partway thru the review, I had spelled the author's name incorrectly (as Dabb instead of Dagg). I've corrected those errors.

Recommended: CELEBRATE MY HOPI CORN and CELEBRATE MY HOPI TOYS

My grandfather, Rex Sotero Calvert, was Hopi. We never called him grandpa or grandfather. We called him Thehtay, which is the Tewa word for grandfather (Tewa is our language at Nambe Pueblo). Calvert is the name he was given when he went to boarding school, at Santa Fe Indian School. Before that, he was Rex Sotero Sakiestewa. He was born in 1895 at Mishongnovi Village.

At SFIS, he met my grandmother, Emilia Martinez. She was from Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo). They lived at Ohkay Owingeh and had six children: Delfino, Felix, Marcelino, Edward, Andrea, and Cecilia. To me, they were Uncle Del, Uncle Felix, Uncle Mars, and Aunt Cecilia. Edward--we call him Uncle John. He still lives there, at Ohkay Owingeh. Andrea--we call her mom.

When I talk with my mom, we sometimes talk about Thehtay. He lived with us at Nambe Pueblo when I was growing up. I remember him being out back, working the garden with a hoe... Suddenly he'd yell "The beans!" We'd have been playing in the garden as he worked, no doubt un-doing the work he'd been doing to irrigate that garden as we made little dams to divert the irrigation water! Remembering the beans, he'd throw down the hoe and run inside the house to add water to the pot of beans on the stove. When he was older, he'd sit in his wheelchair, softly singing Hopi songs to himself. I wish I'd listened to them, and that I'd learned some of them. What I do have are warm memories of him, of being with him, of his humor.

This morning as I read My Hopi Corn and My Hopi Toys, my thoughts, understandably, turned to Thehtay. Written by Anita Poleahla and illustrated by Emmett Navakuku, the two are board books from Salina Press.

Celebrate My Hopi Corn begins with a single corn kernel telling the reader that she has many sister kernels on an ear of corn, that they grow under a warm sun, and that as the days begin to shorten, the kernels take on different colors. Some are yellow, while others are blue or red or white. After they're harvested, the kernels are shelled off the cobs. For that, we're shown a Hopi girl in traditional clothes shelling the kernels off the cobs. Some kernels are ground into flour to make piki (a traditional food that is exquisite in form and flavor. In form it looks like a rolled up newspaper, with the paper itself being the piki, which is kind of like filo dough in its flakey texture). Some corn is used for dances, and, some is kept inside for the next planting season, when a Hopi man plants corn. That page, especially, made me think of Thehtay:

I don't have a memory of Thehtay planting seeds. My memory is of him in a button down shirt and jeans (nothing on his head; not wearing a belt or mocs as shown in the illustration) using a hoe to rid the garden of weeds.

As you see by the illustration, the text in Celebrate My Hopi Corn is in two languages: Hopi, and English. The illustrations are a blend of realistic depictions of people, and, Hopi images like the one of the sun, and later, one of rain clouds. The book ends with a double paged spread of corn maidens:

Corn. Community. Ceremony. Planting. All are important to who the Hopi people are. I really like this little book and wish I could share it with Thehtay. Poleahla and Navakuku's second book, Celebrate My Hopi Toys is a counting book of items used for play, but also for dance. I like it very much, too. Like Celebrate My Hopi Corn, it is bilingual and shows items specific to Hopi people. Poleahla has been working on language instruction for many years. These little books will, no doubt, be much loved by Hopi children, but they're terrific for any child. For children who aren't Hopi, they provide a window to Hopi culture. A window--I will also note--that is provided by insiders who know just what can be shared with everyone.

They are available from Salina Press.