2010: Best Books Recommended for High School

If I was starting a library in a high school, these are the first ten books I'd buy.  In reading these books, students would be reading stories Native writers create about Native people and places.  The books I list here include fiction, historical fiction, poetry, short stories, and, prose.

Update on Feb 24, 2018: I am doing a strike-thru on Alexie's book. Given the news reports about harassment, I no longer recommend his book. When news stories break, I will be back to post the links here.

• Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
• Broker, Ignatia. Night Flying Woman: An Ojibway Narrative
• Carlson, Lori Marie (ed.). Moccasin Thunder: American Indian Stories for Today
• Deloria, Ella C. Waterlily
• Kenny, Maurice (ed.). Stories for a Winter's Night: Fiction by Native American Writers
• King, Thomas. One Good Story, That One
• Ortiz, Simon J. Men on the Moon: Collected Short Stories
• Tapahonso, Luci. Blue Horses Rush In: Poems and Stories
• Taylor, Drew Hayden. The Night Wanderer
• Van Camp, Richard. The Lesser Blessed

For annotations, see my Native Voices article in School Library Journal.

See also:
Top Ten Books for Middle School
Top Ten Books for Elementary School

Download a pdf with all three lists:
Selecting Children's and Young Adult Literature about American Indians

INDIAN BOYHOOD and MIDDLE FIVE - use in 1904

Two of the books on my list of recommended books are The Middle Five by Francis LaFlesche and Indian Boyhood by Charles Alexander Eastman. Both can be used by students in grades 7 through 12. I'm thinking about those two books because I've come across a reference to them. A reference, that is, in a letter written over 100 years ago.  In 1904, Clara D. True wrote to C. J. Crandall. She was a teacher at the Day School in Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico. Crandall was in Santa Fe, New Mexico, serving as a Superintendent of U.S. Indian Schools. True wrote:

Dear Sir:

Enclosed is [a] new set of Abstract F. I am sorry I did not know of the distinction in books. Those I cannot use myself nor give to the children I have been putting on the magazine and newspaper table I have kept for the returned students, hence the wearing out of the so called "Library" books, or most of them. "Indian Boyhood" and "Middle Five" were enjoyed.

I expend a lot of property, I know, but I try to get the intended good out of it and get rid of it as I have not room enough to turn around in anyway. If I put discarded stuff outside the house I seldom see it again. I kept a variety of junk on the roof until I found it was causing leaks by interfering with the running off of the rain water. To keep from sitting up at night with stove legs and desk irons I have buried them in the chicken yard where they await the final resurrecting.

Very respectfully,
Clara D. True

I don't know what Abstract F is. I don't know (yet) anything about Clara D. True. The letter is in files of the National Archives. In the 1800s, the federal government established boarding and day schools for American Indian students.  From time to time my research takes me into archives. Finding letters and the like that refer to literature is one of my tasks. Clara D. True's letter tells me that Eastman and LaFlesche were being read by Native students in 1904. [Update, Aug 18, 2018: I think I saw the letter when I was at Yale University, studying items in the archives. Information about her is here: Letters received from day school teacher, Clara D. True.]

Indian Boyhood by Charles Alexander Eastman, was published in 1902 by "McClure, Philips &; Co." in New York. Eastman was Dakota (Sioux). He was born in 1858. As a child, his paternal grandmother took him to Canada, leaving Minnesota during the Minnesota Dakota conflict of 1862 (that was the "Minnesota Massacre" Laura Ingalls Wilder referred to via Mrs. Scott in Little House on the Prairie). Eastman's formal education began at Santee Normal School. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1886, and got a medical degree at Boston College in 1889. There's a lot to say about him and his life, both as a child and as an adult.  The first stories he wrote were published in St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks.

The Middle Five: Indian Boys at School by Francis LaFlesche, was published by Small, Maynard in Boston in 1900.  LaFlesche was Omaha. He was born in 1857 in Nebraska. The Middle Five is his autobiographical account of his years at the mission school he attended. That school was run by the Presbyterian Church. Later, he worked with Alice Fletcher on a book about the Omaha's. 

I'm glad to know that True's returning students liked both books, and I'm also glad to know that she was providing students with books by Native writers. I imagine it meant a lot to them, in the same way that Native-authored books mean a lot to me, now, in 2009.

Jennifer Denetdale's THE LONG WALK: THE FORCED NAVAJO EXILE

Heated debate is taking place over Patricia Wrede's book, The Thirteenth Child. Many people defend her decision to write a "settling the frontier book, only without Indians" story while others, me included, think it was thoughtless or lazy or... you fill in the blank.

In the midst of that heated debate, yesterday's mail included Jennifer Denetdale's The Long Walk: The Forced Navajo Exile, a nonfiction volume aimed at high school students. It is one of the books in Chelsea House's "Landmark Events in Native American History" set.

Here's the opening lines from Denetdale's first chapter, "Who are the Dine?" (Note: The letter e in Dine should have an accent mark over it, but I can't do it in Blogger.)

It is one of those hot summer days when the gathering clouds promise rain but are still too far away to tell if rain will fall. In Window Rock, Arizona, the capital of the Navajo Nation, Dine Tribal Council delegates dressed in a combination of Western and Navajo style clothing begin to fill the chambers for the summer legislative session. (Dine means the People and is the word Navajos call themselves.)

That's a terrific opening for this book! Denetdale's first sentence embraces the reader's senses, inviting that reader to be with her, in that space, as she tells him or her about the Dine and the Long Walk. There are five chapters, followed by a Chronology, Timeline, Notes, Bibliography, and, Further Reading. The latter are all standard items in a work of non-fiction, but what distinguishes Denetdale's book is that the history and life of the Dine is given by someone who knows, on multiple levels, what she's talking about. Denetdale is Dine. And, she's a historian on the faculty at Northern Arizona University. As such, she brings a lived experience and a scholarly perspective to this book. Quoting again from her first chapter:

In the twenty-first century, it might appear that the Dine are no different than other modern Americans who drive to work in their cars, shop at malls for the latest fashions, grab a quick lunch with co-workers at a local fast food restaurant, or, after work, change into Nike sportswear and go for a jog. On the other hand, Navajos struggle with high rates of poverty and unemployment, with all of its accompanying ills such as disease, domestic violence, and homicides. In many ways, the Dine have become accustomed to American culture, for they are just as proud as others to be Americans. Nevertheless, Navajos remain mindful of how their ancestors have left them a powerful legacy, a determination to remain a sovereign people who have land, a still vital language, and a strong cultural identity.

From there, Denetdale talks about Dine origin stories, and, she tells us that these stories differ from theories of non-Navajo archaeologists and anthropologists. She describes Dine contact with the Spanish, and then with the Americans as she talks about manifest destiny and Navajo resistance. She devotes two chapters to the Long Walk, and the Dine's return to their homelands, and finishes with Chapter 5, "Remembering the Long Walk and Hweeldi." Facing the page on which chapter 5 begins is a photograph of an absolutely stunning rug that depicts the Long Walk. In that chapter, Denetdale brings the reader right up to the present day. There is, for example, a photograph of Dine singers (Verdell Primeaux and Johnny Mike) who won a Grammy in 2002 for the best Native American Music Album.

Her final words in the book are the ones with which I'll end this review. Order The Long Walk. It belongs in every school library, and every public library, too. And, listen to her radio interview on "Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond" about her book, Reclaiming Diné History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita, and order it, too. Reading The Long Walk gave my day a decidedly different trajectory yesterday, effectively countering the story that Wrede's book tells. Thanks, Jennifer!

The Navajo people have not allowed non-Navajo interpretations of this important event in their history to be controlled by non-Navajos. They have taken initiatives to ensure that Americans do not forget the unjust treatment of native peoples; however, at the same time, they are determined to rise above the nightmare of the past that continues to haunt them and reclaim the vitality of their cultural inheritance. The stories of the Long Walk and Hweeldi and what happened to their people has made the Navajos determined to create a better world for the coming generations.

Bad Indians, a poem by Ryan Red Corn

This is an awesome video. Use it with students in high school English classes, film, social studies, social justice courses...

[Note: If you cannot see it, go right to it on youtube: Bad Indians.

Cynthia Leitich Smith's ETERNAL

Cynthia Leitich Smith's new book, Eternal, was launched yesterday. I read a copy a few weeks ago. It is a page-turner about vampires and angels and... It's quite a ride, from Austin to Chicago. I'll leave it there for you to read. If you're a fan of gothic fiction, take a look at Eternal.

As you may know, my blog is about children's books about American Indians. That's what most of the content is about.

However! I think it important that children and teens know that Native people write stories, and that not all of their stories are about Native people. Cynthia's range of books is a good case in point. If you read her YA novel, Rain Is Not My Indian Name, read her vampire novels, too. Her first one is Tantalize, Eternal is the second, and a third one is in the works.

In Tribal Secrets, Robert Warrior writes about American Indian literature and criticism. He says "producers of American Indian literature continue to push the boundaries of creativity by bringing European vampires to Navajo country..." Warrior notes that such a book "does not fit into standard definitions of Indian writing..." but he goes on to say that the increase in such books "seems more than enough justification for some fundamental reworking of scholarly understandings of American Indian literature, culture, and experience."

In essence, it is important that we be open to what is being written by Native writers. Don't pigeon hole them or their writing. Expand your expectations of what Native writers write about.

Read Native writers, whether their stories are about Native life, or vampires.

So! Eternal. Click on over to Cynsations where you'll learn a lot about the book. There's more at Smith's website including a very cool book trailer that perfectly captures the mood of the book.

Nora Naranjo-Morse

Last weekend I watched Nora Naranjo-Morse's lecture, given at the National Museum of the American Indian, in 2007. She was there that summer working on the pieces for the "Always Becoming" installation.

Her lecture was part of the Vine Deloria, Jr. Native Writers Series. It is archived on the NMAI website and is about an hour long. She read several poems, including one that especially struck me--for its imagery, for its emotion, for its power. It is called "A Telegram." Prior to reading it, she talked about writing that poem when she was a teenager, and finishing it last year.

"A Telegram" is about learning that her brother had been wounded in Vietnam. The poem she read at NMAI has not yet been published, but an earlier version of it is in Hirschfelder and Singer's Rising Voices: Writing of Young Native Americans, published in 1992.

Nora is working on a documentary about Always Becoming. She is blogging about it, too. You can follow the project at her blog, also called Always Becoming. She's a poet, a sculptor, a filmmaker. Studying her work, in an art, lit, or film class, would be an incredibly rich experience.

Her book, Mud Woman, is available from Oyate.

Manitoba Reads: IN SEARCH OF APRIL RAINTREE

Today, Nadine (a librarian-in-training) wrote to me after she found my blog. We exchanged a few emails, during which I learned she's from Manitoba, Canada. She had some very cool news about In Search of April Raintree...

Written by Beatrice Culleton Mosionier, In Search of April Raintree is the book chosen for "On The Same Page: Manitoba Reads" --- a literacy project whose goal is to have 12,000 people (1% of the population of Manitoba) read the selected book between October 2008 through April 2009.

According to a review in CM: Canadian Review of Materials, it is widely used in junior and senior high schools, and university courses, too. The On The Same Page site includes a bio and among other things, an interview with her. One of the questions is

"Do you wish you could have read a book like In Search of April Raintree when you were young?"

Her reply:

"I have Metis people come up and tell me that In Search of April Raintree changed their lives. They grew up hiding their Aboriginal roots and with this book, they felt proud of April and proud of their roots. A lot of people, especially Aboriginal people, have told me that this story is their story because it's exactly what they went through: growing up in foster homes; alcoholism in the family, forced assimilation and racism is something that they can identify with."

I read the novel years ago. It should be more widely read in the United States. Thanks, Nadine, for the info!

(Note: The cover image and photo of Mosionier are from the On The Same Page website.)

Update, Dec 23rd, 2008---Oyate carries April Raintree. I asked Beverly Slapin if it is the same book as In Search of April Raintree. She said:

IN SEARCH OF APRIL RAINTREE and APRIL RAINTREE were published together as separate titles. APRIL RAINTREE was the one more accessible for high school students, so that is the one we chose. The only difference, really, seems to be the rape scene, which is a little less graphic in the high school edition.

Poetry by Native Teens featured on PBS NewsHour

On November 19th, the PBS program "NewsHour" featured Native teens reading their poetry. The students attend school at Santa Fe Indian School, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. SFIS is a boarding school run by the All Indian Pueblo Council. A beautiful place, my parents met there in the 50s. My sister works there now, and, in the late 80s, I taught there and met my husband. Fondly, I remember our students walking our daughter, Liz, down the halls in 1992 when she learned to walk. One of my nephews is a student there now.

The students are in the Spoken Word Club. You can listen to the segment here. It is an audio file, that includes clips of the students reading their poems and interviews with the students.

You can watch the students reading their poems here. The students are preparing for the 2009 Brave New Voices Poetry Slam. You can listen to the news segment here. It is an audio file that includes clips of the students reading their poems and interviews with the students.

(Reminder: If you wish to enter a giveaway to receive a copy of Cynthia Leitich Smith's picture book, Jingle Dancer, send me an email with your mailing address. The drawing will be held on Nov 30th, 2008. Click here for details.)

Cynthia Leitich Smith interviews Drew Hayden Taylor

Click on over to Cynsations to read Cynthia's interview of Drew Hayden Taylor. He wrote a young adult novel that I came across last March. I've yet to blog it, but do recommend it, especially for fans of vampire stories. His novel is called The Night Wanderer.

In the interview, he says:

"...I took a European legend and indigenized it.

Simply put, its the story about an Ojibway man who, 350 years ago, made his way to Europe and was bitten by a vampire. He spent all those years wandering Europe, feeling homesick but unwilling to return as the monster he'd become. But finally, unable to stop himself, he makes his way back to where his village once was in Canada, and it's now a First Nations community. He takes up residency at a bed-and-breakfast, in the basement apartment. In that same house is a sixteen-year-old girl, Tiffany, who is having problems with her white boyfriend, father, and herself. Eventually, both their lives intertwine, and things happen!"

He indigenized a European legend. That word, indigenize, has been coming into greater use in recent years. I've written an article called "Indigenizing Children's Literature." Published this month in the electronic journal called Journal of Language and Literacy, the abstract reads:

In this article the author situates the analysis of two popular children’s books in theoretical frameworks emerging from American Indian Studies. Using a new historicist lens, she discusses Anne Rockwell’s (1999) Thanksgiving Day and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s (1935/1971) Little House on the Prairie and suggests that these books function as obstacles for the understanding of the Other in American and global society.

I welcome your critique of the article, and suggest you read Drew's novel. If you want to learn more about him, visit his website.

Teaching Van Camp's THE LESSER BLESSED

If you teach literature in high school, or if you teach Native lit in a college or university, consider teaching Richard Van Camp's The Lesser Blessed. Readers of this site know I've written several times about Van Camp's work. Today, I direct you to an article called "I Liked It So Much I E-mailed Him and Told Him: Teaching the Lesser Blessed at the University of California." The author is Jane Haladay, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Pembroke. Here's the first paragraphs. To read the entire article, click on the title (it is hyperlinked) and scroll down to page 66. The article is from the journal, Studies in American Indian Literatures. At the end of her article, Haladay includes an appendix she called "Presentation Guidelines for Making a Strong Presentation."


"I Liked It So Much I E-mailed Him and Told Him"Teaching The Lesser Blessed at the University of California

JANE HALADAY

MY STORY IS NOT MINE ALONE

Class ends like a scene from the novel itself. "Okay, when we meet next week we'll be into our second novel, Richard Van Camp's The Lesser Blessed," I announce.

From the back corner of the room Luana, a Tongan student, is scrutinizing Van Camp's moody book flap photo. "He's hot!" she proclaims. The class -- seventeen women and three men -- laughs. "

Yeah," I concede, "he's a good looking man." I pause. "But he looks even better in person." They perk up, watching me in anticipation. "He's a bit young for me, though," I finally say. More laughter.

"Do you know him?" Luana asks.

"Yes, I met him at a conference last fall. If you ever get a chance to hear him read his stuff, go! He's an incredible storyteller."

"Where's he at again?" Luana asks.

"Vancouver," I tell her.

"Vancouver . . . ," she echoes dreamily.

"Is that in Washington?" somebody else asks.

"It's in Canada," Luana answers.

"I guess you could transfer up there," I say to Luana, "but I hear it gets pretty cold." Not long after this, Luana dropped my class with no explanation. I still wonder if she transferred.

This essay is just one story in the ongoing conversation of how to approach teaching indigenous literatures in colonial educational {67} institutions. My pedagogy stresses sharing an interactive process of reading and reflection with my students, what black feminist scholar bell hooks terms "engaged pedagogy" in her book Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Hooks's description of engaged pedagogy insists that discomfort, confusion, pleasure, risk-taking, and revelation are not only acceptable but are necessary in the process of acquiring knowledge. While all ethical educators encourage their students to view texts as the ultimate authorities about their own stories' meanings, the complex cultural content of Native texts pushes me and my students even further in recognizing that none of us, sometimes not even the authors themselves, may fully understand what and how the stories "mean" -- and that their meanings are multiple. Through sharing my experiences teaching Richard Van Camp's The Lesser Blessed, I hope to reveal the power of this particular text and the way its effects on students who willingly engage it can create a collaborative learning atmosphere that is transformative. This environment requires me to relinquish primary authority (not always easy) to open a space for student vulnerability and voice, while simultaneously remaining an active moderator and guide shaping the direction of the class. In such a space, students, author, and educator share power in the discussion and comprehension of culture and story.

Students' and my own interactions with the novel's author, Richard Van Camp, a member of the Tlicho, or Dogrib, Nation, have become another strand braided into the collaborative process of teaching The Lesser Blessed.¹ I am sharing these interwoven stories to outline the possible ways in which both educators and authors may interact with and be inspired by the "consumers" of their textual productions, those hungry readers of and listeners to their stories. The Lesser Blessed is now taught in only a smattering of U.S. and Canadian high schools, colleges, and universities, and to date there is a dearth of literary criticism on the novel.² It is my hope that this essay may add to a growing body of discussion around this vital text and encourage other educators to include it in their aboriginal/ Native and other literature curricula.

Another award for Alexie's YA Novel

Editors Note on Feb 25, 2018: Please see my apology about promoting Alexie's work. --Debbie

~~~~

Roger Sutton, editor at Horn Book, just posted to the child_lit listserv, that Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian has won the 2008 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction and Poetry. Roger's post says:

"Novelist Sherman Alexie is new to young adult literature but not to acclaim. A 1995 PEN/Hemingway Award recipient for his first collection of short stories for adults, he is also a poet, a film director, and a standup comic. Last fall, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature."

The award will be presented October 3rd in Boston. Acceptance speeches are printed in the The Horn Book Magazine.

Congratulations, again, to Sherman! I look forward to his work in progress, which is another YA novel: Radioactive Love.

Consider handing Alexie's DIARY to students that are enthralled with Meyer's TWILIGHT saga. His realistic depictions of Native youth in Washington are way better than hers.

Congratulations to Eric Gansworth

Some weeks ago, I posted Eric Gansworth's poem "Loving That Land O'Lakes Girl." Eric is an enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation. The poem is in his book, A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function. Eric wrote to me earlier today with terrific news.

It is on the Spring 2008 National Book Critics Circle's "Good Reads" list. Congratulations, Eric!

To read details, go to the blog called "Critical Mass: The Blog of the National Book Critics Circle Board of Directors." Click here to get there. If you're developing a syllabus for a senior English lit class, consider adding Eric's book to your list.
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Hershman John's I SWALLOW TURQUOISE FOR COURAGE

As noted yesterday, I've been in Minnesota this week at the Native American Literature Symposium. I met many terrific Native writers, including Heid Erdrich, Gordon Henry, Evelina Zuni Lucero, and Hershman John. In an afternoon session, I laughed aloud in Hershman's session, and snapped up a copy of his book, I Swallow Turquoise for Courage.

Hershman talked about Coyote. And then he showed us an animated short of Coyote. Made in 1965, "Coyote and the Lizard" is an old film, low-tech in comparison to present day animation, but it was hilarious. In it, some little lizards are playing, sliding down a hill on flat rocks, much like snowboarding. Their grandpa watches them as they play. Along comes Coyote. He wants to play, too, but the grandpa, knowing Coyote is trouble, tells him "No, you can't play. You're just going to be bad." Coyote asks again and again and again, promising he won't be naughty, so the grandpa finally says ok and tells him to get a thin rock. Coyote gleefully gets a rock and takes his ride, but it is too slow for him. He wants to go faster, so gets a bigger and heavier rock to slide down on...

All the while, the little lizards watch Coyote. Their expressions are terrific---smiling, happy, then wide-eyed and open-mouthed as they see Coyote's too-big rock. Going way too fast, he tumbles head-first off the rock, which overtakes him and then the rock rides Coyote down the hill.

The film was made for Navajo schools, and the narration is in their language. Hershman translated it as it played, with perfect timing and delivery. He remembers it from his own childhood. After the film, he read aloud a poem from his book, in which the Coyote story figures prominently. That poem is here.

Read more about Hershman by visiting his webpage, and get his book from the University of Arizona Press. Hershman's book can be used in high school English classes.

Eric Gansworth's poem, "Loving That Land O'Lakes Girl"

I met Eric Gansworth earlier this month at the Returning the Gift meeting at Michigan State University. He is an enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation. While at MSU, I bought two of his books. One is about Big Foot. Titled Breathing the Monster Alive, the art throughout the book is Gansworth's. If you work with teens who are into graphic novels, you should take a look at Breathing the Monster Alive. I've only begun reading it, and I remember--as does Eric--watching "The Legend of Boggy Creek" when I was a kid, and being... afraid.

As I write this post, I'm at the Native American Literature Symposium, being held this year at the Mystic Lake Casino in Minneapolis. Eric is tonight's keynote speaker. At Michigan State, he read the poem I share with you today (below). It is from his book A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function.

Some of you will love this poem; others will not. Some of you will think it does not belong in the arena we call children's literature, and for little ones, it certainly does not. Critically-thinking high school students, however, will love it--assuming they've developed a critical eye with regard to representation of American Indians.

Loving That Land O'Lakes Maiden

She is the first lesson
in love for many Indian
boys, all tanned hide
and feathers, features straight
out of Hollywood, but she lights
the spark for those red boys
and probably for some
black and white and brown
ones as well, for anyone
who learns her
tricks, really, and they're
not that hard
to master.

She stares out at all from a burst
of sunrise and lush flora kneeling,
hands suspended before her,
framing her bossom with infinitely
smaller versions of herself.

First release her from the cardboard
landscape she inhabits, then
carefully remove the product
placement in front of her,
and just below, fold her spine
back, and back again without
regard to the vertebrae
you snap along the way.

Carefully position her
and her magical side emerges
transforming those round knees
into ample breasts, ditching her
old franchise for Hooters, as she
flashes you with a smile and so much more.

She is by all accounts
"like buddah," all slick
skinned, sweet and soft,
lightly salted,
and when you touch her
you leave an impression
that stays until the next
hot thing comes along.

Is it any wonder Indian women
have grown tough and strong
with competition like that?
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A reader's response to MIKO KINGS

Last week I posted a link to an article about LeAnne Howe's Miko Kings. That post generated this comment from Jean Mendoza:

The article sheds some light on what LeAnne's book is like. But reading The Miko Kings itself has been a rare treat.

As you indicate, Debbie, it's "about" a great many things: Indian baseball. Being in love. Families. The real, life-and-death hazards of living in (or visiting) contested/colonized territory. Losing everything through no fault of one's own. Making choices that cost everything. And ... doing research when one has a personal stake in the outcome -- or maybe the impossibility of believing one doesn't have a personal stake in the outcome?

The author has an astonishing way with voice. More than one character addresses the reader in first person. There's skillfully rendered humor and pathos, plus love and bigotry, oppression and resistance, history and .... well, mystery. Read it! Read it! Read it! Read it!

Miko Kings may remind some readers of Linda Hogan's Mean Spirit, which focuses on Osage families in Oklahoma.

I know very little about the Negro Leagues, though one of their former players (perhaps the last surviving?) lives not far from my home community, and makes occasional appearances at public events.

The book brings up a lot of questions; makes me curious to know more about What Happened.

Miko Kings is published by Aunt Lute, a not-for-profit, multicultural women's press.

Documentary: WAY OF THE WARRIOR

A documentary produced by Patty Loew, a colleague at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be broadcast in the coming weeks on PBS. Titled Way of the Warrior, the documentary is about American Indians in the armed services.

The article about the documentary includes an excerpt, and a photograph and image of a diary (shown here) kept by Loew's grandfather, Pvt. Edward DeNomie. He served in the military during a period when American Indians did not have the right to vote.

There is much to learn about American Indians in the US armed forces. I'm looking forward to viewing this film, and it seems an important one for US history teachers.

To read the article and view the excerpt, click here:
Professor's film on Native American soldiers to air on PBS.
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Laura Tohe's NO PAROLE TODAY

[This review used with permission of its author, Beverly Slapin, and may not be published elsewhere without her written permission.]

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Tohe, Laura (Diné), No Parole Today. Albuquerque: West End Press (1999). 47 pages; grades 7-up

The first words in Laura Tohe’s book are those of Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of the Indian boarding school system that devastated Indian lives throughout North America. Addressing the World Baptist Convention in 1883, Pratt said:

In Indian civilization I am a Baptist, because I believe in immersing the Indians in our civilization, and when we get them under holding them there until they are thoroughly soaked.

Tohe’s great-grandfather was one of the first Diné students to attend Pratt’s Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and she likens her own Indian school experience to serving a prison sentence. No Parole Today is Tohe’s poetry and personal narrative about this time in her life and the challenges of maintaining her identity in a system whose aim is to destroy it.

In an opening piece, a response to Pratt, Tohe writes,

A hundred years after you made your statement to the Baptists, we are still here. We have not vanished, gone away quietly into the sunset, or assimilated into the mainstream culture the way you envisioned….[W]e continue to survive with the strength of the spirit of our ancestors. Our grandmothers and grandfathers taught us to hold to our beliefs, religions, and languages. That is the way of survival for us….I voice this letter to you now because I speak for me, no longer invisible, and no longer relegated to the quiet margins of American culture, my tongue silenced….To write is powerful and even dangerous. To have no stories is to be an empty person. Writing is a way for me to claim my voice, my heritage, my stories, my culture, my people, and my history.

In first grade, the children received their first “Dick and Jane” books, in which they were introduced to white society in the form of Father, Mother, Dick and Jane and Sally, who drove around in cars and said “oh, oh, oh” a lot. In “Dick and Jane Subdue the Diné,” Tohe describes how the schools made the taking away of language a priority:

See Father.

See Mother.

See Dick run.

See Jane and Sally laugh.

oh, oh, oh

See Spot jump.

oh, oh, oh

See Eugene speak Diné.

See Juanita answer him.

oh, oh, oh

See teacher frown.

uh oh, uh oh

See Eugene with red hands, shape of ruler.

oh, oh, oh

See Eugene cry.

oh, oh, oh

See Juanita stand in corner, see tears fall down face.

oh, oh, oh

Oh see us draw pictures

of brown horses under blue clouds.

We color eyes black, hair black.

We draw ears and leave out mouth.

Oh see, see, see.

While most of Tohe’s writing focuses on her coming of age in this hostile alien environment, her later pieces are written from her perspective as an adult, and her final poem, “At Mexican Springs,” is a thing of beauty and hope:

It is here among the sunset in

every plant

every rock

every shadow

every movement

every thing

I relive visions of ancient stories

First Woman and First Man

their children stretched across

these eternal sandstones

a deep breath

she brings me sustenance

life

and I will live to tell my children these things.

For everyone who has survived the Indian boarding schools, and for everyone who never knew of their existence, No Parole Today is a gift. Laura Tohe’s writing is spare and honest, with no polemic; proof of the government’s utter failure to take away Indian voice.

—Beverly Slapin

A Note from LeAnne Howe (author of MIKO KINGS)

I got this note late last night, in response to yesterday's post about "The Indian Show" episode from I Love Lucy. I blogged about LeAnne's new book, Miko Kings, a few days ago. It is available from Aunt Lute Books. I've spent a lot of time with LeAnne, and have heard her use "Fred and Ethel" many times...

Debbie, I love Lucy. In fact, so much so that I often use the terms, "Fred and Ethel," my invisible friends, when I want to make a point about binaries and metaphor. My new novel's working title is: The Adventures of Fred and Ethel in the Middle East: A Choctaw Travelogue. It's all about sex and a love triangle run amuck, and of course, espionage and the CIA, and well, Indians caught in the middle of the Iraqi civil war. Thanks for posting this delicious segment. What fun.

LeAnne Howe

PS: I'm not kidding.

Durango Mendoza's "Summer Water and Shirley"

On this blog is a list of recommended books and resources. The list was compiled by myself and my friend and colleague, Jean Mendoza. Jean has written for this blog, and I've referenced her many times. On that list is a story by Jean's husband, Durango.

That story is the subject of today's post.

"Summer Water and Shirley" was first published decades ago, and is available in an anthology used in high schools, Connections: Reading and Writing in Cultural Contexts, edited by Judith A. Stanford, and more recently in Writing the Cross Culture: Native Fiction on the White Man's Religion, edited by James Treat. Or, you can read the story on-line (link below).

The story is on my mind today because Tol Foster, a post doc here at UIUC, sent me a link to a website with an on-line lecture about Durango's story. The lecture itself is by Craig Womack, a leading scholar in Native literary criticism.

Both--Durango and Craig--are Creek. The webpage says that Womack "introduces the little-known, but remarkable short story" but when you watch the video, you'll see those words fall short. The story is more than just 'remarkable' to Craig.

The webpage includes the entire lecture, titled "Baptists and Witches: Multiple Jurisdictions in a Muskogee Creek Story" in four segments. It also includes a link to the story and a 1970/1971 article from The Chronicles of Oklahoma about a church that has significance to the story, and a list of resources that includes a link to the constitution of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

If you teach Durango's story, take a look. If you don't, take a look! There's so much depth, beauty, and power here...

Thanks, Tol, for sharing the link. We're fortunate to have Tol with us this year. He is Mvskoke Creek.

Reviews: Alexie's THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN

Editors Note on Feb 25, 2018: Please see my apology about promoting Alexie's work. --Debbie

~~~~

Reviews: Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Over the last ten days or so, reviews of Sherman Alexie's YA novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian have been appearing in major newspapers across the country. The reviews are excellent. I don't recall a Native authored children's book getting this much press before.

It is well-deserved, for Alexie. It is a terrific book that will, no doubt, win accolades in the children's and YA arena. Newberry, perhaps.

Let's hope readers are so enamored that they look for other books written by Native authors! If you're a person who works with children and books, use the excitement around Alexie's book to promote other Native authored books.

Here's links to the reviews. I don't know how long these will work. Papers vary with respect to how long they let you read an article before they impose a charge to view it. The subtitles of the reviews themselves are interesting to consider...


LA Times review by Susan Carpenter: "'The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian' by Sherman Alexie, A Native American boy tries to fit in at a white high school as reservation life takes a toll on his family"

NY Post review by Blake Nelson: "The School of Shock: Indian Delves into White Curriculum, Survives Battle"

Minneapolis Star Tribune review by Jim Lenfestey: "Books: Straight shooter. FICTION 'A teen boy on the Spokane Indian Reservation, beset by health problems and poverty issues, decides to attend school off the reservation, earning the enmity of his peers."

Seattle Times review by Stephanie Dunnewind: "Sherman Alexie captures the voice, chaos and humor of a teenager"

Ottawa Citizen review by Sarah T. Williams: "Native author is a man of many tribes: Terrorist attacks of 9/11 led writer Sherman Alexie to abandon the negative aspects of tribalism"

Oregonian review by J. David Santen Jr.: "Alexie pulls no punches in young-adult novel"

Newsday review by Sonja Bolle: "Alexie entertains while taking on tough ideas"

Spokesman Review by Dan Webster: "Alexie's new fiction may be close to truth"