NOT RECOMMENDED: Paul Goble's THE GIRL WHO LOVED WILD HORSES (updated re Goble's identity)

Is Paul Goble's The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses one of your favorite books? Published in 1978 by Bradbury Press, it won the Caldecott Medal thirty-five years ago. Let's take a look at it. 

Here's the first paragraph in the story:

The people were always moving from place to place following the herds of buffalo. They had many horses to carry the tipis and all their belongings. They trained their fastest horses to hunt the buffalo.

With the word 'tipis' in that paragraph Goble suggests that these are Plains people. The buffalo are another clue that suggests the story is one belonging to the Plains tribes.

As the story begins, we learn of "a girl" (we are never given her name) who loved horses. People in the village see that she has a way with them. One day when she is out with the herd of horses, a huge storm erupts. She leaps onto one as the herd races in fear. When the horses stop that night, the girl looks around and realizes that they are lost. The next morning she wakes to the neighing of a handsome stallion who tells her he is the leader of the wild horses that roam the hills. He welcomes her to live with them. She and her herd are happy.

Meanwhile, her people spend the next year looking for her. One day, two hunters see the stallion and the girl, too. She's on a horse, leading a colt. They call and wave at her. She waved back, but the stallion drove her and the herd away from the hunters. Other men join them in an attempt to reach the girl, but the stallion keeps them away from the girl and the colt. But, the girl's horse stumbles, and she falls. The hunters take her back to the village. She was happy to see her parents but she is sad. She misses the colt and the wild horses. At night, the stallion calls to her. The girl is lonely and gets sick. Doctors ask what would make her happy again, and she says she wants to return to the wild horses.

The stallion and wild horses come to the village. The people give the horses blankets and saddles and they give the girl a beautiful dress and the best horse in the village. The girl gives her parents a colt, and she rides away, beside the stallion, reunited with the herd. Each year, she brings her parents another colt. But one year, she doesn't return at all.

Then, the hunters see the stallion again. Beside him is "a beautiful mare with a mane and tail floating with wispy clouds about her." They believe the girl is that mare, that she has become a wild horse, too. The story ends with:

Today we are still glad to remember that we have relatives among the Horse People. And it gives us joy to see the wild horses running free. Our thoughts fly with them.

Nowhere in The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses do we have any sources for that story. As noted earlier, Goble's use of 'tipis' suggests a Plains tribe. What we know as the Great Plains is a vast area. Here's a map from the Smithsonian:

See how that area stretches from the north to south, spanning at least 1500 miles? See the 20 or so tribes listed in that area? There's a lot more than just those 20. They don't speak the same language and they don't tell the same stories.

The question is, who does this story about a girl who became a wild horse belong to? It'd be good to know. If it is a story Goble came up with, then it isn't a Native story, is it?

Though it won the Caldecott, and though a lot of people love Goble's art, I think it is (past) time to set aside The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses. What do you think?


Update, 6:00 AM, June 11, 2014

(1) Elsewhere people are noting how much like they like his art. It is a style most people would recognize as "Goble" but let's pause again. I haven't done a close study of it, but does it suffer from the same ambiguity we see in The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses?

(2) Someone noted that Goble was adopted by a tribe.  His Adopted by the Eagles (Macmillian, 1994) includes this:

Does being given a name and being called "Son" mean he was adopted? Was he adopted by Edgar Red Cloud? Or was it by a tribe, as was done with President Obama? I've ordered Goble's autobiography and will revisit this post when it arrives. It may provide details about how he met Edgar Red Cloud.

(3) The Author's Note for Adopted by the Eagles says:

"I would like to think that Edgar somehow sensed, right from the start (1959), that I would one day make books of some of the stories he told me."

Many authors say something similar to that... about how Native people they know/live amongst asked them to write a story about them. As readers of AICL now, I frown on that phrase.

(4) Goble's note ends with this curious paragraph:

Finally, it needs to be stated that the traditional kola friendship of the two Lakota men, as described in this story, was never a homosexual relationship. Kolas sought to guard each other from all errors; to share their strengths while walking life's Good Red Road together.

I wonder why Goble felt compelled to include that paragraph? Adopted by the Eagles was published in 1994. Perhaps it was prompted by a fear that people wouldn't buy a book about friendship between two men, but, do other books published then have a similar disclaimer?

(5) The last item on the page with the Author's Note is a very important note for teachers. Here it is, in its entirety:

When a book like this has been read in the classroom, students are sometimes asked to write their own "Indian" stories. It is not asked with bad intentions, but it belittles these traditional stories, suggesting that any child can invent them. When studying the Greek myths, or the legends of King Arthur, or Bible stories, students would never be asked to invent stories in the manner of... Instead, children should be encouraged to write down the stories in their own words to help remember them. Over the years they will come to think about the inner meanings which all these stories hold.

I say that, too. I'm glad to see it in Goble's book. But he's invented stories! Is it ok, since he is not a child? I don't think so!

See my previous posts about Goble. I'll have more to say when I get Goble's biography.
July 22, 2009: About Paul Goble and his books...
April 3, 2011: Dear Mr. Goble: 

Dear Mr. Goble: Questions for Paul Goble about THE GIRL WHO LOVED WILD HORSES

Paul Goble's The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses was published in 1978. It won the prestigious Caldecott Medal.

Due to the popularity of his style, and the Caldecott, too, The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses has been printed and reprinted lots of times. The copy I'm looking at right now (dated 2001) indicates I have one that was in the 12th reprinting.

As we saw in the discussion of Robert Lawson's They Were Strong and Good, books can be revised, with problematic language removed in the process.

I'm wondering if Paul Goble or an editor at Simon & Schuster might do some revising of The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses?

Well---maybe not revising, but an addition to the book. By that, I mean information about the story itself. I mean a source note!

Let's look at his book, using criteria developed by Betsy Hearne in her "Cite the Source: Reducing Cultural Chaos in Picture Books, Part 1" article. It was published in 1993 in School Library Journal. Betsy called her criteria "A Source Note Countdown."

Before I start, I'll say I find the book as problematic as the other "Native" book that won the Caldecott in the 70's: Gerald McDermott's Arrow to the Sun. The subtitle for McDermott's book is A Pueblo Tale. There are nineteen different pueblos... which one does he mean? Does he think we're all the same? What is the source for the story he tells? Does McDermott know that the pueblos in the northern, mountainous part of New Mexico are not the same as the ones located in more southern areas of the state, where the geography is not as mountainous? There are significant differences, in fact, even within a single pueblo, from one society or clan to the next one...  Without providing a source, McDermott introduces the chaos Betsy points to by being non-specific. An elementary school teacher who chooses to use his book to supplement teaching about Pueblos people heads down a rather risky road...

Course, his book---and Goble's, too---were written in the 1970s...  Because of that, some might argue that it isn't fair to judge them by today's standards. Still, given their status as Caldecott books, maybe we can ask them to be updated with a solid source note...

In her source note countdown, Betsy writes about five ways an author can acknowledge his or her sources. Worst case is #5, "The nonexistent source note." Next is #4, "The background-as-source-note." Number 3 is "The fine-print source note." At #2 is "The well-made source note." And the best note, #1, is "The model source note."

In Betsy's countdown, the worst note is "the nonexistent source note."  In this case, the subtitle or jacket copy makes a vague claim that is, as Betsy writes, "faithfully picked up and authoritatively echoed in the Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication statement." To the right is the cover of The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses. No subtitle. The text on the jacket book flap, however, says "In simple words and brilliant paintings that sweep and stampede across his pages, Paul Goble tells of a Native American girl's love of horses."  And here's the CIP info:

Summary: Though she is fond of her people, a girl prefers to live among the wild horses where she is truly happy and free. [1. Fairy tales. 2. Indians of North America-Fiction. 3. Horses-Fiction] 

I'm guessing the Library of Congress cataloger used the jacket copy to assign the book its 2nd category (Indians of North America-Fiction). There isn't an author or source note anywhere in the book. The only information we are given is the Library of Congress summary. No "background as source note" or "fine-print source note" or "well-made" or "model" note. In interviews, Goble says he does extensive research. So...

----------------
April 3, 2011 

Dear Mr. Goble, 

Can you tell your editor at Simon and Schuster that you'd like to add a well-made source note to this book? One that tell us the specific source (or sources) you used to tell this story? Can you give us a description of the cultural context in which this story was/is told? And, can you tell us what you've done to change it, and why you've changed it as you did (if you did)? 

Thanks,
Debbie Reese

(I'll send this on to Simon and Schuster, and to Mr. Goble, too, if I can find a way to contact him. I'll let you know if I hear back from either one.)

Update, June 11, 2014:
I did receive a reply to my letter. In it, Mr. Goble said that I could not quote him. The gist of his short letter is that publishers cannot afford to add pages like the one I requested. I find that answer curious because his later books include that information.