Highly Recommended: FOREVER COUSINS written by Laurel Goodluck; illustrated by Jonathan Nelson

 

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Forever Cousins

Written by Laurel Goodluck (Mandan, Hidatsa and Tsimshian member)

Illustrated by Jonathan Nelson (Diné)

Published by Charlesbridge

Publication Year: 2022

Reviewer: Debbie Reese

Status: Highly Recommended

****

As I turned the pages of Forever Cousins, I thought back to the early 1990s when we left Nambé's reservation to go to graduate school in Illinois. Our daughter was three years old. She and her cousins were in tears. The always-present playing options were about to change. 

When you start reading Forever Cousins, you'll meet Amanda and Kara and to a lesser degree, Forrest. You'll learn a lot about them. The two girls are together all the time. Sometimes they're doing things most kids in the U.S. do--like make jelly sandwiches--and sometimes they're doing something Native kids do, like dancing at a powwow. On the cover you see both girls have dolls. Those are quite special! They were made for them by their magúu (the author's note tells us that magúu is a Hidatsa word that means grandmother).

We learn that they live in a city and that Kara and her family are moving from the city to the Rez. They'll see each other in a year. A year! In subsequent pages we see the two, both feeling alone while doing the same activity. Amanda is at a powwow in the city (we see tall buildings in the background), holding her doll close as she sits on a folding chair. Kara is at a powwow on the Rez (we see low hills in the background). Her mom offers her some fry bread but she just hugs her doll and shakes her head.  

Throughout, Nelson's illustrations set the story very much in the present day. That's especially evident on the page where the two girls talk to each other using a video platform on their cell phones. Like anyone, we use all the forms of literacy and communication available to us! I like that but I also like the page where Amanda gets a post card from Kara. Finally it is time for Amanda and her family to hit the road! It'll take two days to get to the Rez. Nelson shows us their joy when they cross a state border. That made me smile. When we drove from Illinois to Nambé, we'd cheer just like that when we crossed from Texas into New Mexico! 

Amanda and her family arrive at the reunion, and after some initial shyness, the cousins have a great time and we see the families gathered while a new baby gets his Hidatsa name. It is then time to say their goodbye's. 

The story Goodluck and Nelson share in the pages of Forever Cousins is a joy to read and look at. Like the recent books by Native writers, it has an extensive Author's Note that provides teachers with information that helps them understand why Amanda and Kara and their families aren't on the reservation when the story starts. In her note, Goodluck says that the characters in her book represent her and her cousins growing up in the 1960s and 1970s in the Bay Area suburbs of California. She shares some background about her family and cousins and how the city and the Rez were both home and community. She says:

As a matter of fact, we are dual citizens: first enrolled members of sovereign Tribal Nations and then citizens of the United States. The term "sovereign nation" means a Tribal Nation that governs itself. If it is federally recognized, then it has a governmental relationship with the United States as a nation with a nation.

Those of you who know me probably guess that my heart is soaring as I read those sentences! Teachers: download Affirming Indigenous Sovereignty: A Civics Inquiry by Sarah B. Shear, Leilani Sabsazlian, and Lisa Brown Buchanan. It'll provide you with ideas on how you can incorporate tribal sovereignty into your classroom. 

In the portion of her note titled "From the Reservation to the City" she tells us that her parents moved from their reservation to the city because of the Indian Relocation Act of 1956. It was a federal program that was described as a way for Native people to move to cities and get vocational job training--but there was more to it than that. Goodluck writes:

In actuality, the federal government wanted to erase Native culture by moving Native people to cities so they would adapt to the lifestyles of white people. 

I am so glad to see that sentence in this book! This is the honesty that ought to be in every book! 

She goes on to say that her parents were able to get jobs in the city, but that the government promise of a job did not work for most tribal people. They endured discrimination and racism. I have uncles and aunts who moved to cities for jobs. Some got those jobs and stayed in those cities, others came back very soon. I suggest you read Indian No More because it, too, is about this relocation program. 

I'm sharing the final paragraph in the note because it is so very powerful:

The treatment of Native Americans in the United States was and sometimes still is despicable. But as with the family in this story and with my own family, unjust experiences forge tight bonds between us and make us strong. Our resiliency is rooted in our ceremonies and culture. We have a deep love of home. The land reminds us of our ancestors, storytelling helps us make good decisions, and we continue to have love and loyal family connections that are unbreakable.

Forever Cousins is tribally specific. Both, the author and illustrator, are Native. The story is set in the present day. It can--and should be--read year-round (not confined to a heritage month or day). It is getting a 'highly recommended' label from me, but my enthusiasm for the book is much more than a 'highly recommended' label conveys. With this story and the note, Goodluck and Nelson give teachers or parents information that they can carry with them when they close this book and choose another one that features Native people. They see us as people who live in a city or on a reservation. They can see us as people whose identities and lives as Native people are central to who we are, and who share the same sorts of joys and fears that kids of other cultures do, too. 

Forever Cousins is one of the best books I've read. I'm delighted to read it, to write about it, and to recommend it to everyone.

BUFFALO BIRD GIRL: A HIDATSA STORY, by S.D. Nelson

The subject of most biographies of Native women are Pocahontas and Sacajawea. I did a search of the Comprehensive Children's Literature Database to get a rough sense of how many books there are about each one. I limited the search to those published between 2000 and now. I got 188 on Pocahontas, and 192 on Sacagawea. Quite a lot, don't you think? Some critics say those two women are heralded by those who seek to celebrate figures in U.S. history because they helped Europeans. Some say they were diplomats; others say they were traitors.

My point in sharing those publication numbers is to say that I think publishers would do well to publish biographies of other Native women!

With S. D. Nelson's Buffalo Bird Girl: A Hidatsa Story, Abrams has scored a big win. It is racking up starred reviews by the mainstream review journals and by those who look more critically at the portrayals of American Indians. It is, for example, on the Cooperative Center for Children's Books CHOICES 2013 list.

Nelson's art invites the reader to pick up the book. Once inside, there's a mix of his art and photographs of Hidatsa people. The back matter provides a timeline that teachers will find helpful when using the book in the classroom. With the Common Core thrust upon them, this biography will surely get lot of use in classrooms.

I agree with the praise the book is receiving, but have one quibble. I wish that the book cover and text featured her Hidatsa name, Waheenee, which means Buffalo Bird Woman, instead of "Buffalo Bird Girl." I'm guessing the change from woman to girl was a strategy to help young readers identify with Waheenee as a girl, but I think Nelson's illustrations make that point quite well.

Some background

Nelson tells us that his source for this biography is Waheenee: An Indian Girl's Story; Told by Herself to Gilbert L. Wilson.  Wilson's book was published in 1921.


Scholars in American Indian Studies and American Indian Literatures point out that the audience for these early books was not a Native one. As evidence, we point to text in the books, where the author is speaking directly to the reader. Consider, for example, Wilson's Myths of the Red Children published in 1907. In the Foreword, Wilson wrote that fairy tales from Europe were delightful, but that with Myths of the Red Children, America's "little reading folk" could develop "a kindly feeling for a noble but vanishing race" (p. vi). I think it is fair to say he was not thinking of Native children as readers of Myths of the Red Children. 

Take note, too, of Wilson's use of "vanishing race." Wilson was part of the research efforts of the late 1800s and early 1900s that sought to document Native cultures before we died out. A major problem with that research effort is that many of the researchers did their work largely unaware of their own perspective, which is an outsiders perspective. Many did not understanding much of what they observed. A year after Myths of the Red Children was published, Wilson began his work with the Hidatsa people.

One outcome of that work was Waheenee. Like Myths of the Red Children, it was written for a child audience. Its final pages (beginning on page 183), speak directly to that young reader:

Young Americans who wish to grow up strong and healthy should live much out of doors; and there is no pleasanter way to do this than in an Indian camp. Such a camp you can make yourself, in your back yard or an empty lot or in a neighboring wood.

Following that passage are instructions for making a pole hunting lodge and several pages of recipes. I think it fair to say that Wilson was keen on playing Indian.


Nelson is wise not to echo Wilson on that point. His careful use of Wilson's material is important in other ways, too.


Buffalo Bird Woman was born in 1839 and died in 1932. She lived through a lot of changes. The Hidatsa were part of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. Subsequent violations of the treaty resulted in a huge loss of their land. During her lifetime, they were moved to a reservation. There were several devastating smallpox epidemics.

Of those significant events, only smallpox is included in Wilson's book. On page 9 of his book, Wilson says: "Then smallpox came." We all know that smallpox came from Europeans, but that information isn't provided anywhere in Wilson's book. In his picture book, Nelson does indicate the source for smallpox (p. 3):

It arrived with the coming of the white men. They did not bring the sickness on purpose, but Indians could not fight off this disease--they had no immunity to the dreaded evil spirit.

During Waheenee's lifetime, her people experienced tremendous loss of land and were moved onto a reservation, but these things aren't included in Wilson's book. When the word 'enemy' appears in the book, it is used only to describe other tribes. Doesn't that strike you as curious? Biased, perhaps? It seems to me that Wilson wanted his readers (remember, this book was written for white children) to develop a viewpoint of Indians as aggressors.

Nelson talks about enemy tribes, too, but doesn't leave out reservations. On page 39 of his Buffalo Bird Girl, Nelson (in Buffalo Woman's voice) writes:

Like-a-Fishhook is gone now. There are no buffalo left to hunt, and the fur trade ended long ago. The government of the United States said my people had to move from our village. They promised to provide rations of food and clothing if we lived on a reservation. The government built roads, schools, and churches. They told us that our children had to learn to live the white man's way. So we Hidatsa, as well as the Mandan and Arikara people, gave up our round earth lodges and began living in square cabins on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

I would have loved to see one more page about the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara people... In the "Today and the Future" section of the Author's Note, Wilson writes this:

The Hidatsa people are still here, as are the Mandan and the Arikara. They remain one sovereign nation. Each member of the nation has the same freedoms as every citizen of the United States. Like all other human beings, they face the many challenges of a rapidly changing world. Today they govern themselves with self-determination. Their words and actions give shape to their lives and hope for their children. 

I want teachers who use the book to put that information front and center of their use of Buffalo Bird Girl. Introduce students to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation website. Teach the book by teaching children about Waheenee's people---as they are today. Teach them what sovereign nation means! Show them the pictures on the site! And while you're at it, teach them about Nelson's tribe, too. Visit the website of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation!

We need more books like this one, by authors like S.D. Nelson. Thanks, Mr. Nelson, and you, too, Abrams, for Buffalo Bird Girl.