Not recommended: KOKOPELLI'S FLUTE by Will Hobbs

Years ago, someone asked me about Kokopelli's Flute by Will Hobbs. It wasn't the first ask but it is on my mind lately. I can't get a digital copy. I am able to read the first chapters in Google books. Here's notes as I read: 

The cover illustration is, without doubt, a rendition of Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde. In addition to the title, the cover includes these words: "Tep didn't mean to unleash the ancient magic..."

Chapter 1 of Kokopelli's Flute begins with "The magic had always been there." Magic again? Immediate response from me? Umm... what is he talking about?! I continue reading that first paragraph. The "magic" is in "the light" and in "the rock" in "the miniature city the Ancient Ones left perched in the cliffs." For years, the main character, Tep, has been trying to get closer to "the magic." We read "This would be the night I not only got close, but crossed over." 

Again, what magic? And where or what does he want to cross over to in that "miniature city"? Pause to look up the book description:

THE MAGIC HAD ALWAYS BEEN THERE. Tep Jones has always felt the magic of Picture House, an Anasazi cliff dwelling near the seed farm where he lives with his parents. But he could never have imagined what would happen to him on the night of a lunar eclipse, when he finds a bone flute left behind by grave robbers. Tep falls under the spell of a powerful ancient magic that traps him at night in the body of an animal.

Only by unraveling the mysteries of Picture House can Tep save himself and his desperately ill mother. Does the enigmatic old Indian who calls himself Cricket hold the key to unlocking the secrets of the past? And can Tep find the answers in time?

Back to chapter one, second paragraph. There we learn that a total eclipse of the moon will take place that night and Tep wants to see it from what he calls "Picture House." He's been there a lot, "puzzling over the secrets of the ancient pueblo." He thinks that maybe during the eclipse, if he listens hard enough, he might hear the footsteps of the Ancient Ones. Maybe even their voices. Maybe even dancers coming out of their kivas. Me: sighing, frowning, shaking my head. But there's more of that sort of thing on page three:

Eight hundred years ago the people came through all those little doorways for the last time, walked away, and left only stillness, silence, and secrets.

That wistful (if that's the right word) writing about any people makes me cringe, but especially when its a white character thinking about ancestors of today's Pueblo Indians. 

On page four, as Tep and his dog wait for the eclipse, they hear voices. Turns out to be two men who are talking about how they're gonna make thousands of dollars digging at the site. Tep can't believe it. He sees the items they've dug up. One is a "seed jar" which struck me as odd. We call them seed pots. 

"Picture House" Tep tells us, has not ever been vandalized because it isn't marked on maps and its hard to get to. The two men are in a room that Tep has been in many times. There's a back wall in that room that Tep says is built with a special purpose in mind, like to bury someone. Tep is only supposed to be a kid, but his character is created by an adult. Clearly, Tep doesn't like what the two men are doing but I don't like him going all through "Palace House" either, looking for the magic. Sheesh. 

The two men have found "a burial" which is the body of what they call an albino because his skin is pink. There was a large pot with him that broke open. In that pot was a basket the two men call "a medicine man's bundle." So, the body is that of an albino medicine man. I really dislike this content. Hobbs (the author) seems to be telling us it is bad to do this, but in telling us the value of this activity, it doesn't jive. Especially when we read the next part. 

Tep scares them off and then goes to see where they had been digging. They took the pot and the basket and most of its contents. In their rush they left behind a small polished flute. Tep thinks he should return it immediately to the albino medicine man but he is afraid of him and doesn't want to go into the room. He thinks the flute must be powerful. "Something told me I shouldn't put it to my lips" but he does it anyway, startled by how clear it sounds. Then he sees a packrat.  

That's all I can see online. Reading the book's description, however, my guess is that "the magic" of the flute turns Tep into a packrat by night. Again, sigh. 

At this point, I'm saying "not recommended." If I'm able to get a copy and have the wherewithall to read the rest of it, I seriously doubt I'd change my mind. This book is rife with do-gooder whiteness. 

Why is it being assigned in schools? What educational purpose does it meet?! 

 

Not Recommended: STORIES CALIFORNIA INDIANS TOLD by Anne B. Fisher

Several readers have asked me about Stories California Indians Told by Anne B. Fisher, illustrated by Ruth Robbins. It came out in 1957 from Parnassus Press in Berkeley, California. 

Whenever I am asked about a book, the first questions I pose are these: Who wrote it? When did it come out? What are the author's sources? What verb tense is used? I also consider the title and what it conveys. 

I'd like everyone to pose those questions, too. 

With this book, we see a problem right away in the title. The problem is the word "told." It implies the stories are not being told today. Switch that past tense word for its present tense form: tell. If the title was Stories California Indians Tell, it conveys a living people. I am not suggesting a simple change in a verb in the title would make this book acceptable. 

As far as I am able to ascertain, the author and illustrator of the book are not Native. 

Its publication date is 1957. What awareness did the author and her editor have, about Native peoples and how we feel about representation? Native people knew we were being misrepresented but did not have access to tools we have today (social media). Since then, the publishing world has become more informed and I doubt this book would get published. 

In the book's Forward, I see that the source is Dr. C. Hart Merriam, who "wrote the tales down just as they were told to him by Indian story-tellers." Merriam then told the stories to Fisher (the author), who "turned them into stories for children and young people." One option a researcher can do is look for the source material and compare the source with how it was adapted (in this case, by Fisher). What was left in? What was not used? But when doing that particular kind of study, you'd need to see how reliable the source (C. Hart Merriam) was. In previous studies I've done, I've found those sources lacking. People who gathered the source material were outsiders looking in, not understanding what they were observing. They sometimes forced their own interpretations on what they observed. 

The Forward is written by an anthropology professor at San Francisco State College. His name: Adan E. Treganza. In the forward, several specific tribal nations are named by geographical location. All through there, however, are past tense verbs. Treganza uses "stories" and "myths" and "tales" to describe the contents of the book. In the final paragraph, Treganza writes that the characters in the myths do things that "appear to be impossible." He continues (p. 6): 

California Indians, like all other people, were imaginative and attempted to explain in their myths the world of nature around them. Animals, reptiles, or insects were often given the ability to think and speak like humans and to exert almost unlimited physical powers. Yet these stories were very real to Indian children and adults, as real as our own legendary tales are to us." 

At the moment, I'm looking at verb tense again. The stories "were" real. Are they not real anymore? It pains me to write something that should be obvious to everyone, but, Native peoples in California tell stories, today. Do they tell the ones in this book? I'm doubtful. Let's look at the first one.

The first story in Stories California Indians Told is "How California Was Made." In it, "the Medicine Man of the Gabrielino Indians" sees leaves falling, which signals that "the time for story telling was here." He paints his body, puts on a headdress, went outside of his hut, and called out "Come sit around the fire and I will tell you a story." From all the huts around his, Indian men and their wives and the Indian boys and girls came running. The people loved stories and they loved Medicine Man to tell them." The story he tells is about how the Great Spirit made land using several turtles, who he told to get in a long north-south line, head to tail, with the three at the southerly end placed more towards the east. "You'll make a wonderful California!" he told them. 

The story goes on but I'll pause there so we can critically analyze the information summarized above. 

In the first story in this book, we're asked to believe that a Native man whose people have lived on this continent since time immemorial is telling his people their creation story -- and calling their land by a name outsiders gave to that land. 

When you search the etymology of the word California, you'll find many sites saying it is from a Spanish novel published in 1510. What did Native peoples of the state currently known as California call that land before Europeans invaded their lands? The story says "Gabrielino" Indians, but what did that particular group call themselves, originally, in their own language? By focusing on "Gabrielino" and "California" we can see the problem. This is outsider perspective, and as such, is not something that should be used to teach anybody about the original peoples of California. 

And what the heck -- all the people in this village came running to hear the story?! Creation stories are sacred. 

In short, Stories California Indians Told is not recommended. 

I encourage educators to read and use On Indian Ground edited by Joely Proudfit as a resource! It'll help you make informed decisions about old and new books. 

NOT RECOMMENDED: BACK IN THE BEFORETIME. TALES OF THE CALIFORNIA INDIANS by Jane Louise Curry

A reader wrote to ask if I've read Back in the Beforetime: Tales of the California Indians by Jane Louise Curry. 

The answer? I had not, but the reader's question prompted me to take a look. 

It came out in 1987 from Margaret K. McElderry Books and again in 2001 from Aladdin. It is written  by a person who (as far as I can tell) is not Native.  Back in the Beforetime is one of several books Jane Louise Curry has written about Native peoples. I was able to get an electronic copy of her book. The first thing I do when taking a critical look at a book is to see if there's an Author's Note. There is one in this book. Reading it, I was pretty sure I would not recommend the book. Let me show you what I mean. 

The first sentence of the note starts with "The Indian tales." That word -- tales -- is familiar. You see it with "folk" and "fairy" and "tall" but you rarely see it used with Bible stories. In my work, I've come to see that as a problem. Many "tales" are creation stories considered sacred to the people who tell them, but their stories aren't treated with the same respect given to Bible stories. You don't see Bible stories categorized or shelved as folktales. As I read further, would I find a lack of respect in Back in the Beforetime?

Let's see. The first sentence in its entirety is:

The Indian tales of Back in the Beforetime come from a number of California tribes, from the Klamath River region in the north to the inland desert mountains and the southern coastlands. 

Here's the second one:

In reading through the many tales and fragments of tales recorded during the past century, I chose first those legends which could be woven together to tell the larger tale of Creation from the making of the world to man's rise to lordship over the animals, and then a selection of comic or trickster folktales which seemed to fit happily within that framework.

Hmmm. There's a lot to respond to in that sentence. "Lordship over the animals" sticks out and feels very white to me. And where, I wonder, was she finding these "tales and fragments of tales"? Reading to the end of the note, I don't see a list of her sources. That's important information. Knowing them would help us a lot. Her sources are likely ones collected by white people who had no idea what they were doing when they looked upon Native ways. Their lack of knowing meant their account is a misrepresentation of what was going on. The second part of that sentence tells us she chose legends that "could be woven together" to tell what she calls "the larger tale of Creation." What she did, when she wove some together, is a huge red flag. Why? Because she assumes that all these tribes are the same in how they think about the world. Many writers do that. They take something from one tribal nation's stories and then take something from a different one, and put them together as if that's fine. I don't think it is fine, particularly when books will be used in classrooms to teach children about Native peoples. In fact, anybody who reads the book is being miseducated. 

Third sentence:

In several instances, where a story was incomplete or lacking in detail which could be found in a second version from the same or another tribe, I have told a composite tale.

See? She says right there that she pulled from several places (that she must assume are accurate) to create a "composite" tale. You might be thinking that I've being harsh. You might be thinking that Curry and her editor and others who did the same thing didn't know better. That they had good intentions. We can assume ignorance and good intentions but the product is still deeply flawed. The book came out in 1987. By then there were many people writing about misrepresentations. As far back as 1829, Native people were objecting! Take a look at William Apes (Pequot) on Depictions of Native People in Stories. Many people defend what an author does by saying that nobody spoke up, then, and that it is unfair to challenge the author. People say that about Gone With the Wind but when the movie came out, African Americans protested at a theater in 1940. The New York Times article has photos of the protest. My point is that the author and editor may not have known they were publishing a flawed product--but that doesn't mean people weren't objecting. What anyone knows is shaped by who they know and what they read. 

Back to Curry's note. In paragraph two, sentence one:

Several of the California tribes are represented in Back in the Beforetime by more than one tale, and many by none.

Reading that sentence, I thought that when I read the stories in her book, I'd see names of specific tribal nations. Some would be mentioned more than once because "more than one tale" was from one tribe. That was not the case. Here's the table of contents:

See? Titles of stories, but no tribally specific information. Is there some with each story? Easy enough to check. I turned to the first one: 

There is no tribal nation mentioned after the title, and as I read the story, I didn't find one there, either. On the last page of that story, I see that after having created Grizzly Bear, "Old Man" was afraid of him So, Old Man retreated to his ice mountain and began to "hollow it out for a teepee." A teepee? I wonder about that because I associate tipis with Plains Indians. Curry finishes the story by telling us that the animal people Old Man created never saw him again, but sometimes, they'd see smoke coming from "the smokehole of the white teepee mountain and knew he was still there. They called his mountain Shasta. And so do we, for it is still is there." (Note: I am tempted to go down a rabbit hole wherein I search for "Old Man" and "Shasta" to see if I can find the source for Curry's story. I may do that later.) 

In the second paragraph of the Author's Note, the second sentence is:

Being a storyteller rather than a folklorist, I have not sought to make a representative collection, but one which will offer to readers or to a storyteller's audience entertaining tales that can both stand alone and give some sense of what the context of a single story might have been within a tribe's traditional body of tales.

Entertaining? Ok. Stories do that, but within an educational context, the goal is education. Learning. Understanding. When the stories are about Native peoples, it is crucial that they be specific to a tribe. Without specificity, we all fall into stereotypical chasms that suggest all Native peoples are the same. We're not. 

Next is the third paragraph. First sentence:

Many California tribes have dwindled or vanished. 

Too many books use that sort of language. "Vanish" is especially outrageous. It means to disappear suddenly, without a trace. That's not what happened. Things don't just happen.  Colonization, invasions, killings, removals... that's what happened, over a period of time. Native people fought back. There's more to say about that style of writing but I'll move on to the next sentences.

Others still struggle to preserve their traditions and holy places in a world of change. Of some, little trace is left but their tales, recorded long ago by folklorists and anthropologists.

Part of that "struggle" involves pushing back on misrepresentation that started with those long ago recordings. We could insert "white" in front of folklorists and anthropologists but unless you've studied how they got it wrong, inserting white doesn't help much. 

The last sentence in the Author's Note:

For us their tales of the Animal People, in whom animal and human natures are mingled, are both comic and poignant, reminding us that once there was a time when Man was more fully at home in the natural world.

Comic? As in funny? Amusing? Ludicrous? Ridiculous? The author is definitely making a judgment that bothers me. But I remind myself that her sources may have that quality in them --- because the folklorist or anthropologist got things wrong. 

That's the end of the author's note. And from what I've seen, my earlier thought that I'd not be recommending the book stands. I do not recommend Back in the Beforetime. 

I encourage you to stop using it in your classrooms. And as always, if something I've said doesn't make sense or if you want me to say more, let me know in the comments.

NOT RECOMMENDED: Lois Duncan's STRANGER WITH MY FACE

I begin with a sample of the book covers for Duncan's Stranger With My Face, overlaid with the red X that I use to signal that a book is not recommended. There are several different covers, which means the book sold well enough to get reissued with a new cover.

In her article for the May/June 2023 issue of Horn Book Magazine, Angeline Boulley talks about Lois Duncan's Stranger With My Face. She wrote:

The first time I read a story that featured a Native American protagonist, I was a high school senior. It was a significant experience for me. As an Ojibwe teen, I hadn't realized my absence in books until that moment. In Stranger with My Face by Lois Duncan, teen Laurie learns she was adopted as a baby and that she is Native American. I was excited and intrigued to dive into the mystery-thriller in which Laurie's twin sister, Lia, reconnects with her via astral projection. 

My excitement quickly subsided, to be replaced by something unfamiliar and uncomfortable. I didn't have the words at the time to convey exactly why I felt so disappointed and, even, embarrassed. Now--as an adult with a twenty-year career striving to improve public education for and about Native Americans--I understand that the story lacked authentic representation and perpetuated stereotypes of Indigenous peoples. 

Boulley's article pushed me to take a look at Stranger with My Face. Previously, I've read Season of the Two Heart (published in 1964). Both are deeply problematic. As an adult, Angeline Boulley is able to describe an emotion she had experienced as a Native teen. That emotion? Embarrassment. What do non-Native teens feel today, when they read the book? What do non-Native readers feel? What do non-Native readers take away from the book?

Today, I listened to a podcast about the book (recorded 4 years ago) by two adults who discuss books they read as teens. They are clearly enthralled by the book and have no idea the Native content is problematic. 

Here's the book description:

Laurie Stratton finally has everything a sixteen-year-old could ever want. But just as her perfect summer comes to a close, things start to unravel when her boyfriend insists he saw her out with another guy-when Laurie was really home sick! More mysterious sightings convince Laurie someone very real is out there, watching her. . . .

The truth reveals a long-lost sister who has spent the years growing bitter and dangerous. She has learned how to haunt Laurie, but the visits soon become perilous. She wants something from Laurie-her life!

Stranger with My Face was first published by Little Brown in 1981. It was named an ALA Best Books for Young Adults and as the covers above show, it did very well. It was republished in 2011, with some edits to the content and an interview with Duncan, done by young adult author Jenny Han. 

Han asks Duncan about the Native content (p. 291):

Jenny: The glimpse into Navajo culture is fascinating, and in the end, it's what saves Laurie. Do you have any ties to Navajo or Native American culture?

Lois: I spent most of my adult life in New Mexico, surrounded by Navajo culture. 

That's it: Lois lived in New Mexico, "surrounded" by Navajo culture. In several places, I read that she lived in Albuquerque starting in the early 1960s. The Navajo Nation is not in Albuquerque. There were, and are, Navajo people in Albuquerque, but Duncan said "Navajo culture." As I sit here, my thoughts on "Navajo culture" are of Navajo art forms like sandpaintings and woven rugs. What does she mean? 

Let's take a look at the Navajo content in her book. I lay it out by page number with content or description of content on that page, followed by my comments in italics. The story is set on the east coast, mostly on an island. The protagonist is a seventeen-year-old teen named Laurie. Her boyfriend is Gordon. 

p. 23

I didn't have the sort of looks you found just everywhere. Gordon kidded sometimes that I could be part Indian with my dark coloring, high cheekbones and almond eyes. "Bedroom eyes," he called them, meaning they were sexy. My father referred to them as "alien" because they were the same shape as the eyes he gave to the maidens from other worlds in his novels. When I looked at my parents--both of them so fair--and at Neal and Meg with their light blue eyes and freckled noses, I wondered sometimes how I had managed to be born into such a family.

Deb's Comments

Dark coloring and high cheekbones? Those are stereotypical markers. And, those "bedroom eyes" bother me. The phrase sexualizes a teen girl. The book was first written in 1981 and revised in 2011. I suppose some women would be ok with that term in 1981 but in 2011? Surely not! When the 2011 edition was done, that passage could have been edited out, but apparently neither Duncan or her editor thought it was a problem. It is, however, a significant problem. Native women experience violence from non-Native men at alarming rates. 

Laurie's dad calls her eyes "alien." He's a sci-fi writer and uses that word to describe "maidens from other worlds." He means other planets, but reading those words hits me in a different way. As we come to find out, Laurie's birth mother was Navajo. The adoption part of the story took place in Gallup, New Mexico--which borders the Navajo Nation's reservation. Laurie is definitely not from "another world" but the white family that adopted her? We could say they are from another world. But really, her dad's use of the word is awkward and ought to be have taken out of the revised edition.

p. 52

Before we get to page 52, Laurie's friends, Laurie's family, and Laurie start to sense and see someone/something that looks like Laurie. 

Meanwhile, a new family has moved to the island. It includes a girl named Helen. They've moved from Tuba City, Arizona, where Helen's parents taught at an Indian boarding school. Laurie starts to become friends with Helen. Here's their conversation on page 52:

Helen told me about a boy named Luis Nez.

That was the name he used at school," she said. "I wasn't allowed to know his Indian name. The Navajos are a private people. Luis was my boyfriend, but there was so much that he couldn't share with me." She paused, and then raised her hand to touch the tiny turquoise carving at her throat. "When I left, he gave me this." 

"What is it?" I asked, hoisting myself up on one elbow so as to see better.

"A fetish," Helen said. "It's an eagle, predator of the air. When Luis learned we were coming east by plane, he carved it for me. Turquoise is the Navajo good-luck stone. A turquoise eagle protects the wearer against evil spirits from the skies."

Deb's Comments 

Duncan tells us that Helen's family has moved from Tuba City, Arizona which is within the borders of the Navajo Nation. It is likely that the boarding school her parents taught at is Tuba City Boarding School. That's fine, but what about the passage about his Indian name? All we really get from that is that Navajos are kind of mysterious. 

Remember that Duncan told Han that she was surrounded by Navajo culture? Duncan was a white woman (she died in 2016). When Duncan died, people offered tributes to her body of writing, especially for the crime, gothic, supernatural, and horror stories she wrote for teen readers. She told Jenny Han in the interview that she experienced astral projection herself (more on that later) several years after the book came out when her daughter was murdered.  

Duncan didn't have to depict Laurie as being Native. Laurie could have been white. Why did Duncan depict her as Navajo (actually, Laurie's birth mother was Navajo and her birth father was white)? To some readers it might seem cool, or as Han said "fascinating" but if the reader is Native or Navajo in particular, it is not cool. 

When Laurie first saw Lia (her twin), Lia is a scary, ghost-like image. On page 65, Laurie learns that she was adopted. Laurie's parents had gone to New Mexico to adopt a baby. They saw twin babies. Her mother held and liked Laurie, but not Lia. When she held Lia, she felt that the baby was strange and that she would not be able to love her so they did not adopt Lia. Her placements in foster homes never worked out. Much later in the story we learn that Lia has malevolent motives, driven by jealousy and she uses astral projection to harm others. 

The passage on page 52 has things in it that Duncan depicts as cultural: a name and how it is/is not used, and a stone and its significance within a culture. Living in Albuquerque, Duncan would probably know about stores where Native art is sold. Carved stone figures (fetishes) were, and are, quite popular items. She may have asked a shop keeper about the significance of turquoise (the stone) and eagles (the fetish Helen has been given). In this book, that fetish is a key plot device. Duncan needed an item that would fit with the astral projection plot. In the interview with Han, Duncan likens the fetish to rosary beads or bread and wine in Communion. 

I wish that Duncan had depicted Laurie and Lia as white characters and used rosary beads instead of making them Navajo. In choosing to use Navajo culture, she casts Navajo people as mysterious and, well, evil. Angeline Boulley felt embarrassed and I bet Navajo readers feel that, too. 

p. 53

When Laurie tells Helen that people see her in places she wasn't actually at, Helen asks her if she was using astral projection:

"Using what?" I said in bewilderment.

"You know--sending your mind out from your body? Luis's father used to be able to do it." She paused. "If you had, you'd have known it. It's something you have to work at."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. What did Luis's father do?"

"I'm not sure exactly," Helen said. "Luis didn't talk much about it. He seemed to take it for granted. The medicine men could do it whenever they wanted, I think, and some of the others too. The way Luis described it, the person has to will himself out of his body. It takes tremendous concentration."

Debbie's Comments:

Above (through Helen), Duncan is introducing readers to astral projection as something that a Navajo medicine man does. Laurie's bewilderment and responses further Duncan's depiction of Navajo's as mysterious. 

As the story continues, Helen and Laurie talk about astral projection, and Laurie tries to find out more information about her twin. Helen and Laurie grow closer, as friends. But then something happens to Helen. She falls, hits her head, and ends up in the hospital. It becomes clear that Lia is responsible for Helen's fall. That makes Helen the most recent person who Lia hurt out of jealousy. The turquoise eagle necklace plays a prominent role towards the end of the story. Megan (Laurie's little sister) throws it at Lia who has occupied Laurie's body. On contact, Lia is driven from Laurie's body and Laurie retakes control of her body. 

p. 97

Lia lived with their mother for a short time before she died. Laurie remembers asking Lia (who was visiting Laurie via astral projection) to tell her about their mother. Lia tells her that their mother never smiled because the world had been cruel to her. In her telling, Laurie says Lia creates "some sort of fairy tale from another place and time." Laurie can't recall Lia's precise words but remembers it this way:

There was once a young Navajo girl, Lia said, so lovely that all the men in her village wanted to wed her, and she was married at the age of thirteen to the son of the Chief. So, without having known girlhood, she settled down to being a wife. Then one day when she was seventeen, the same age we are now, a trader came through the village in a pickup truck buying turquoise and silver jewelry. He was handsome and fair-complexioned with hair the color of sunshine, and the girl took one look at him and fell violently in love. He asked her to come away with him. She told him that was impossible. But suddenly, when she realized that he was really leaving, she climbed into the cab beside him and rode away with him, leaving everything she owned behind in her husband's hogan. 

"I belong to you now," she told the trader. "I will love you and stay beside you until the day I die."

But the trader was a casual man who was used to willing girls and good times, and after several months with his Indian maiden he grew tired of her. 

"Go back to your people," he said. "That's where you belong."

"I can't," the girl told him. "My husband would never take me back. Besides, I am going to bear your child."

"That's your problem, not mine," said the trader.

She thought he was joking. But that night he did not come home to her. She sat for three days in their apartment, waiting, until finally she had to realize that he had left her. In the top drawer of his bureau she found an envelope with money in it and a note that told her to put the baby up for adoption. Enclosed was the address of the Hastings Agency.

The "baby" turned out to be twin girls with the trader's fine feathers. They had lighter skin than their mother's, but had inherited her hair and eyes. Obeying the instructions in the note, the young mother took them to the agency, but because they were of mixed blood they were classified as "hard to place." 

"Won't your family help you raise them?" the director, Mrs. Hastings, asked. "The Navajo people always take care of their own."

The girl explained that she could not return to the reservation with half-breed children.

"The people would drive me out," she said. "I am married to the son of the Chief."

Laurie's telling of the conversation with Lia continues, with Lia describing their mother's attempts to raise her alone. They lived in one low-cost apartment after another, and that their mother supported them by cleaning houses. Sometimes she'd take Lia to them. They were beautiful. At the end of the day, Lia and their mother would go back to their apartment, eat, and go to bed. She was miserable. She'd imagine the ocean, that their mother had seen when she went searching for the trader. Laurie asks when she had time to do that, and Lia told her that their mother would just lie still on the bed and "go." Laurie realizes that their mother also had the power to do astral projection. One place she looked for the trader was in California because Indian jewelry was in demand there. 

Debbie's Comments

In Lia's story to Laurie, we see outsider writing. Duncan has a Navajo character--Lia--speaking about their origin but she sounds like a white girl telling a European fairy tale. "There was once" as the opener kicks it off. It continues with notions of beauty making a Navajo person much-desired by others. And what the heck... Lia uses "Indian maiden"? That grates! And, being married at thirteen? Jean Craighead George did that, too, in Julie of the Wolves. 

White traders did go through Native communities, buying items they would later sell and it is reasonable to think that Lia and Laurie's mother fell in love with one but I don't know about her calling her own children "half breed" and I don't know if "the people" would reject her. Calling them "the people" also grates. She's talking about her own community. Again--this is supposed to be a Native voice, but it sure doesn't sound like one to me. I also wonder about "the Chief." The Diné (Navajo) people use "chairman" to refer to their leader. The word "chief" was used to refer to Manuelito but that was in the 1800s. Duncan's "chief" sounds more like the romanticized kind of thing that outsiders come up with. 

****

Summing up: I read the whole book more than once to do this write up and analysis of significant passages in the Stranger With My Face. I think I've done all I need to. I wish Duncan had not depicted Laurie and Lia as Navajo. It wasn't necessary for a horror story about twins and astral projection. In fact, when a film version of it was made in 2009, Laurie and her sister are not Navajo. Have you seen the film? Was there a necklace in it that saves Laurie in the end? Objects do have significance, within any peoples' spirituality or its religious ways of being, but in this book, something that *might* be significant to Navajo people sounds more like holy water to me. In so many ways, this book fails. It is fiction, and people will defend it being on shelves because of that. I hope my "not recommended" label encourages some librarians to reconsider it. 

NOT RECOMMENDED: "California Native American Tribes" series by Mary Null Boulé

If your library has a copy of one of the 26 books in the "California Native American Tribes" book series, get it off the shelf. Let's take a look at it. My hope is that you will see it ought to be weeded, immediately. 

The series is written by Mary Null Boulé. They came out in 1992, and were published by Merryant Publishers. 

The books are similar. They begin with a section of "General Information" that starts out with:

Out of Asia, many thousands of years ago, came Wanderers. Some historians think they were the first people to set foot on our western hemisphere. These Wanderers had walked, step by step, onto our part of the earth while hunting and gathering food. They probably never even knew they had moved from one continent to another as they made their way across a land bridge, a narrow strip of land between Siberia and what is now Russia, and the state of Alaska. 

Historians do not know exactly how long ago the Wanderers might have crossed the land bridge. Some of them say 35,000 years ago. ...

Those Wanderers who made their way to California were very lucky, indeed. California was a land with good weather most of the year and was filled with plenty of plant and animal foods for them to eat. 

Most people remember "the land bridge." But most people do not realize that it is a theory. Boulé gestures to it being a theory when she says "Some historians think..." but the rest of the paragraphs present that theory as if it is a fact. It is not a fact! 

Recently I was in the San Marcos, California area for a workshop. The main presenter was Nicole Myers-Lim, director of the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center in Santa Rosa, California. She began her remarks by saying that nearly every fourth grade textbook incorporates the Bering Strait Doctrine into its content on California Indian history. There are several other, more recent theories, about how humans came to exist on the continents known as North and South America. 

If you're a teacher or parent who has access to a history textbook being used right now in your school, take a look. How does it present that theory? 

As I page through the books in the California Native American Tribes series, I see text and sketches that make me cringe: 

Not only did the California tribes speak different languages, but their members also differed in size. Some tribes were very tall, almost six feet tall. The shortest people came from the Yuki tribe which had territory in what is now Mendocino County. They measured only about 5'2" tall. All Native Americans, regardless of size, had strong, straight black hair and dark brown eyes. 

That's just one example. Through and through, the text and illustrations feel like grotesque anthropology books that suggest Native people no longer exist. The Boulé books are riddled with past tense verbs. They look and feel like dioramas that museums, like the University of Michigan's Museum of Natural History, are abandoning. Here's an excerpt from the article:

What may have been once an effective means to portray how artifacts were used in context of early Native American civilization has become inexpedient, often evoking pejorative connotations, and sometimes fostering perceptions of Indians as “frozen in time,” said Amy Harris, director of the University of Michigan’s Exhibit Museum of Natural History. 

In early January, 14 dioramas at the museum will be taken from public viewing and placed in storage. Until then, Harris said the dioramas are a catalyst for a broader discussion about the role of museums, and the proper portrayal of Native Americans, the only people relegated to be “presented” in natural history museums. 

“We were concerned that we were leaving the impression that Native Americans are extinct, just like the dinosaurs on the second floor,” said Harris, who, since 2000 has met regularly with a range of constituents, including U-M faculty, students and Native Americans around the state. The goal was to gauge the effectiveness of exhibits. Harris soon found out the dioramas were offensive and perpetuated negative attitudes. 

Some of you may cringe, too, reading the paragraph from the Boulé book, but you might be saying 'well, that's what they thought back then' when the series came out in 1992.

I urge you to revisit that justification. Who is 'they' in that way of thinking? That justification suggests such things no longer happen. But the thing is, books with that sort of thing come out, today, in 2023. And I see the Boulé books on library lists of recommended books, today! If you're using them or recommending them, stop! They're completely unacceptable. The paragraphs from the University of Michigan's director can help you think more critically about books -- old or new -- that have a land bridge theory or frozen-in-the past depictions of Native people. 

Debbie--have you seen SWIFT ARROW by Josephine Cunnington Edwards?

Some time back, a reader wrote to ask if I had read Swift Arrow by Josephine Cunnington Edwards. It was published in 1997 by a publisher I was unfamiliar with: "TEACH Services." On their website is a page about their history. A paragraph from there:

On January 1, 1984, a small home in Harrisville, New Hampshire, became the maiden office of TEACH Services, Inc. The mission of the newly formed publishing company was to encourage and strengthen individuals around the world through the distribution of books that point readers to Christ. 

I see, there, that the author was a missionary to Africa. And here's a description of the book: 

Colored leaves, red, yellow, and brown, fluttered past George as he rode behind Woonsak in the long string of Indians and ponies. They were riding north and moving quickly. So many Indians moved along the path that George, who rode near the front of the line, could not see the end when he turned around to look. The farther they went, the more unhappy George became. For with every step, Neko (his faithful pony) took him farther and farther from his home and from Ma and Pa. Even the fluttering leaves seemed like little hands waving good-bye all the day long. So begins chapter seven of this beloved classic by Josephine Cunnington Edwards. George, a young pioneer boy is captured by Indians and raised as the son of a mighty chief. He spends his time learning the ways of these native Americans, and yearning for the day that he might find a way to return to his loving family.

The TEACH website offers a preview of the book. That same preview is available in Google Books. Historical fiction often has biased and anti-Indigenous words, so I sometimes do a search (that's an option in Google Books) on a particular word to see how it is used in the book. In Swift Arrow, I found:

"squaw" -- 20 times

"squaws" -- 18 times

"paleface" -- 13 times

"brave" (as word for male) -- 12 times

"papoose" -- 11 times

"redskins" -- 4 times

"firewater" -- 3 times

"savages" -- 2 times 

I also looked for the word "dance" to see how it is used. Classic and award-winning books often include deeply offensive depictions of what they call Indian dance/dancing. In Swift Arrow, George watches "several warriors" jump into the middle of a circle and begin "a strange dance" where they leap into the air, and howl. Then, "several more braves" jumped into the circle. As George goes to sleep, he listens to the "howling" and thinks about this "savage life." You see that sort of description in Little House on the Prairie, and Sign of the Beaver, and Touching Spirit Bear. 

As the description above notes, George gets captured by Indians. When he arrives at the village, a few "squaws" pointed at him and "a few reached up dirty hands to touch his light face and run their fingers through his curly hair." There's a lot to say about that particular scene but I draw your attention to the word "dirty." It is also commonly used in historical fiction, as if being dirty is a way of life for Native people. It wasn't. 

As I look at reviews, etc., I see that their chief, "Big Wolf" plans to make George--who is now called Swift Arrow--his son and future chief of the tribe. That sort of thing is seen in many works of historical fiction. An authority figure (in this case "Big Wolf") is choosing a white captive for a significant role in the tribe. Those storylines are examples of white supremacy. Knowing that the author was a missionary, it does not surprise me that she created that particular plot. 

If I decide to order the book I'll be back with a more in-depth review but right now, I am confident in saying that I would not recommend it. I wish this book was an outlier but I think the questions I've received about it point to it being used more and more within politically conservative spaces. 

 

Not Recommended: The Little Indian Runner

Yikes! You know how you get a request and think you'll take care of it 'tomorrow' and then suddenly, time has passed and it sits, undone? Well, that is me today. Three years ago...   No, let me say it this way: THREE YEARS AGO (caps capture my emotion) a librarian wrote to ask me about The Little Indian Runner. Written by a Native writer, I was (of course), excited. 

The book is by Mark E. L. Woommavovah, a citizen of the Comanche Nation. When he was a kid walking with his aunties, he'd run ahead of them, wait for them to catch up, and run ahead, again. In my mind, that's such a terrific image! A Comanche person of the present day giving us a book about his childhood, running, sounds great. 

But then...

I saw the book. I am so disappointed. The illustrations are garish.  Garishly stereotypical. The person who did them is James Koenig. He is not Native. Instead of a Comanche kid of the 1950s or 60s or 70s (I don't know how old the author is, so those years are an estimate of the time period during which he may have been a kid), we see a caricature that (to me) looks like it came right from old, stereotypical cartoons. I'm not sharing the images here. You can look them up if you wish. 

I'd have much preferred art that showed Woommavovah as he probably was back then: clad in jeans, some kind of athletic footwear, and a t-shirt. Instead, we get over this figure with its bare torso, painted face, feathered headband, leggings and breechcloth, and moccasins. 

The art is a mess. 

The content? That depends on the reader's point of view. It ends with the end of the runner's day when he goes to bed and says a prayer. It isn't a Comanche one. Instead, it is that "now I lay me down to sleep" one, which I think, appeared in The New England Primer in 1781. Anyone who recited that prayer or has children that recite it may like seeing it here, but I don't. My guess is that the author is Christian. He could have submitted the manuscript to a Christian publishing house, where an editor might have helped edit the writing (some of it is clunky). Based on what I've seen from some Christian publishing houses, they'd have probably been fine with Koenig's illustrations.    

Anyway for many reasons, I do not recommend The Little Indian Runner. 

And a note: If you have a story from your childhood and you'd like to get it published, I strongly recommend you read books being published today, by Native writers. There are so many to study. The goal is not to force a conformity in what you do; instead, it is to help you see where we are, now. A book like The Little Indian Runner might have gotten published by a major publisher years back but I don't think that would happen today. 

A final note to the librarian who wrote to me three years ago: I'm sorry it took so long for me to do this review! You had concerns. You were right. 

Nostalgia for Margaret Wise Brown's DOCTOR SQUASH THE DOLL DOCTOR

Yesterday (Monday, Jan 17, 2023) this image appeared on the timeline of my Facebook account. Specifically, it was shared to a Facebook group about children's literature. I paused when I saw it:

Those of you who read AICL would probably have paused when you saw it, too. There's derogatory stereotypes on that page. I wish it was being shared to call attention to the problems but that is not the case. 

The illustration is from Doctor Squash the Doll Doctor. Written by Margaret Wise Brown, the first edition was illustrated by J.P. Miller. It came out in 1952. 

An author shared it on her page, and an administrator for the Facebook group shared it to a Facebook group for children's literature. Right now (Tuesday Jan 17, 6:26 AM Pacific Time), there are 40 likes and hearts on the author's original post. There are five comments saying things like "Love this!" and "Oooh, a vintage one to check out" (followed by a smiley face with 3 hearts on it). The original post was shared, uncritically, by five people. 

When I saw it on the FB group page, it had 36 likes and hearts and one comment from a person who has the book and quoted a line from it ("Whenever you are sick, sick, sick, call for the doctor quick, quick, quick!"). 

There's clearly a lot of nostalgia for what is--speaking honestly--racist imagery!

I submitted a comment to call attention to the stereotyping. I also anticipated the responses I'd likely get defending it, and included arguments to counter them ahead of time. This morning, the share to the children's literature group is gone. My guess is that the administrator who initially shared it decided to delete it. I wish they had left the post there, for discussion. 

You may recall that I wrote an open letter to Kate Di Camillo last year, about her Facebook post where she had warmly shared a memory of reading Island of the Blue Dolphins. She read my letter and asked her followers to read it, too. I think I'll share that post to this facebook group. There was a time when I had warm feelings about a book I read as a child. That book is The Five Chinese Brothers. I didn't see the stereotyping it in until I was an adult looking critically at images. I definitely see it now and when I work with teachers and librarians, I'll usually talk about that memory and letting go of the book. 

Doctor Squash the Doll Doctor is one I want to dig into a bit. The illustration above is from the first edition. Here's that cover (screen capped from an Etsy page):

In 2010, it was reissued (I think as an e-book) by Random House with new illustrations by David Hitch. Here's the 2010 cover:

Here's the review of the 2010 e-book from School Library Journal:

K-Gr 3–This newly illustrated reissue of a 1952 Golden Book recounts the illnesses of various dolls–squeaky soldier, teddy bear with a bloody nose, fireman with a broken leg, Indian with poison ivy, etc–and Doctor Squash, who comes running to dispense medicine and advice as needed. When the good doctor falls ill, the toys get the chance to return the favor and take care of him. Hitch's cartoon illustrations complement the text well with bright colors and great facial expressions. They are updated from the original (no Mammy doll) but still have an old-fashioned look. References to the snowman doll's illness and “wild Indian” have been removed. Perplexingly, the story does continue to refer to cough drops as “good as candy and just as pretty” and to mention writing prescriptions for measles, mumps, chicken pox, and whooping cough. Updated, but still a bit out-of-date.–Catherine Callegari, Gay-Kimball Library, Troy, NH. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. --This text refers to the library edition.

Here's the review from Kirkus: 

A Little Golden Book first published in 1952 with illustrations by J.P. Miller sees new life with new art, proving yet again that Brown is synonymous with timelessness. When dolls are sick or in pain, there’s really only one doctor to call: the good Doctor Squash, who attends to their every need. From broken legs and poison ivy to coughs and the mumps, the doctor always has the right cure on hand. And when the doc falls ill, the dolls take care of him in return. Some of the original text has been updated to suit the times (for example, the Wild Indian Doll becomes simply the Indian Doll). Gone too are such anachronistic images as the mammy doll. Appropriate though these changes may be, it is a pity that there is no mention of them in this new edition. Nevertheless, playing doctor with dolls never falls out of style, and Hitch’s retro style and modern toy updates work overtime to ensure that this book becomes a classic all over again. Entertaining and charming. (Picture book. 4-8)

As both SLJ and Kirkus noted, the 2010 one does not have the Mammy doll. Neither review pointed out that the doll with a sombrero, huge mustache, serape, and guitar is also gone. (SLJ noted that the snowman is gone; in the original the snowman got frostbite on his left foot.) 

Here's the page with "the Indian Doll" (screen cap is from the Internet Archive):

If the text in the 2010 version is the same as the text in the original 1952 edition, the words on that page were "The wild Indian Doll fell off his horse when he was out for a ride one day." Do you think "The Indian Doll" is an improvement? I don't. 

At the website for the Smithsonian's American History Museum, I was able to find illustrations (but not text) for the original book. Here's the way Miller drew that page:

The "Indian" doesn't have a big nose, feather and tomahawk in the updated version. I suppose Hitch and the art director at Random House thought that was a good change, but it isn't. Not really. We still have use of a single image to represent "Indian" as though we're all the same. And I suppose they decided it is not ok to have a Black or Latinx doll -- that perhaps they can't be playthings, but did they decide a toy Indian is ok? I think they did. They are wrong, of course. They seem more knowledgeable than the people on FB who feel warmly towards the original, but the "Entertaining and charming" line from the reviewer at Kirkus is disappointing. Overall, from the readers on a FB group page to the professional reviewers, we see lot of room for growth. 

Obviously, I do not recommend Doctor Squash the Doll Doctor. 

That's all I have for now. On to other things. As always, I welcome your comments. 

"Never fear," said Gramps. "My great, great grandmother was one quarter Native Bear and I am ready to share."

This morning on Twitter, I saw a tweet that included a photo of a page from a Berenstain Bears book. The person who shared it characterized it as 'yikes' and most of the people who commented about it agreed. Because a lot of what we see online is satire or parody, I wondered if someone was playing around with the Berenstain Bears books. 

Some of the books have stereotypical content and are cringeworthy. In Berenstain Bears Go to Camp (published in 1982 by Random House) shows Grizzly Bob in a feathered headdress and fringed buckskin. In Berenstain Bears Give Thanks (published in 2009 by Zonderkids, a Christian publishing house) the bear family has a turkey named Squanto. This is supposed to be their dinner on Thanksgiving Day but Sister Bear objects and they decide to keep Squanto as a pet. 

I looked for the book where Gramps says his great, great grandmother was "one quarter Native Bear" and found it right away. It is in The Berenstain Bears Thanksgiving Blessings. Like Berenstain Bears Give Thanks, it is from Zonderkids, the Christian publishing house. It came out in 2013.

Thanksgiving Blessings is one of the too-many books that puts forth the feel-good Thanksgiving story (in this one, the "Native Bears" gave the "Pilgrim Bears" food and they all shared in a great feast), but it is also one of those that goes a step further by having a character claim to be Native. That character talks about what they will "share" with others. Some readers will see "share" and think it is a good moral lesson, but some of us read that and see it as an attempt to depict harmony that looks away from the facts of history.

Here, it is Gramps saying that his great, great Grandmother was "one quarter Native Bear." Here's a screencap of the page (I put the red arrow there to draw your attention to Gramps and this bogus claim):

And here's the text on that page:

The whole family helped set the table. It was, indeed, a magnificent Thanksgiving feast. 

"It's a shame there aren't any Native Bears here to share it with us," said Brother. 

"Never fear," said Gramps, seating himself at the head of the table. "My great, great grandmother was one quarter Native Bear an I am ready to share. Let's eat!"

If you follow Native people on social media, you know that there are many conversations about people who claim they are Native. Social media makes it possible for this topic to be more visible than ever before. 

I ran into these claims a lot in the 1990s when I was a student at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). It had a stereotypical mascot they called "Chief Illiniwek." Before I arrived there, Native students, staff and faculty had been asking the university to get rid of it. 

Without fail, we encountered fans who claimed that they are part Native and--with that claim to Native identity--said that the mascot was a good thing. Some of them may have had an ancestor, but some of them were simply recounting family lore, and were using that family lore to dismiss Native people who resist being stereotyped and misrepresented via mascots, children's books, television shows, and movies. 

That dismissal is precisely what I see in Thanksgiving Blessings. Obviously, Mike Berenstain (his parents launched the Berenstain Bears books in the 1960s), uses Gramps and his "one quarter Native Bear" as an attempt to validate the bogus Thanksgiving story. 

If you have a family story that tells us an ancestor was Native and you have no idea what that ancestor's nation was, and you speak from that space of not-knowing, I urge you to stop doing that, especially if you're doing it to counter Native people who speak up about stereotypes, and/or biased and inaccurate information. You are harming the very people you claim to be. You are undermining us. Please stop! 

To learn more about fabricated or unsupported claims to Native identity, you can read through resources I've compiled: Native or Not? And if you see that sort of thing in a children's book, please let me know!

Not Recommended: BAREFOOT BOY by Gloria D. Miklowitz and Jim Collins

Barefoot Boy by Gloria D. Miklowitz, illustrated by Jim Collins, came out in Follett's "Beginning to Read" series in 1964. A reader sent it to me some time back. Here's the book description:

Paul Steven did not like to wear shoes. He lost a pair of white shoes and a pair of brown shoes. He also lost his sneakers. The barefoot boy found that pebbles hurt, bees sting, thorns bite, and glass cuts. On his 7th birthday, he received a cowboy suit, a cowboy hat, a toy gun.....and a pair of high, shiny COWBOY BOOTS. The boy loved his boots and a cowboy never takes off his boots!

On page 12, we read that Paul Steven stopped wearing shoes because "Paul Steven became an Indian." He tells his mother that he "never heard of an Indian wearing shoes."

With each page turn we see one stereotype after another:

His father tells him that "In winter even wild Indians wear moccasins. Where are your moccasins, Paul Steven?"  

Paul Steven has some, so he wears them for a while but then, as the description above notes, he gets a cowboy suit and cowboy boots for his birthday. Now, he's a cowboy who wears his boots, all the time. 

Quite the story, isn't it? 

I did this short post on it because readers with this kind of stereotyping are not published like they used to be--but the kinds of images in them still circulate in how people think about Native peoples. People have a lot of nostalgia for these kinds of books. This book came out when I was in elementary school. It may have been on the shelves in my school but I don't remember it. Do you? 

Debbie Reese responds to Kent Nerburn

Dear Kent Nerburn, 

On April 13th, the MinnPost ran an interview that Jim Walsh did with me. In it, Walsh asked me what I find most bothersome about the idea of white writers writing Native stories. You submitted a comment in response to what I said and it seems you were hoping I'd see your comment. I tried to reply but had trouble registering for an account. Rather than fuss with the website, I decided to respond here.

Here's your comment to the interview:

By Kent Nerburn

on April 13, 2022 at 1:39 p.m.

As a non-Native author who writes about experience with Native reality and has done it in a unique way that has gained both respect and traction in Native America, I wonder what Debbie Reese thinks of my work and approach in Neither Wolf nor Dog, The Wolf at Twilight, and The Girl who Sang to the Buffalo? I think I’m an outlier who has found a way to write across cultures, and many Native readers and organizations agree. But I always want to hear other opinions. The books are well-known and used in many curricula, so I’m guessing she knows of them. This forum is an odd way to reach out, but it seems like an opportune way to do so. My apologies if this seems like a self-serving comment; it is not intended to be so. It is a way to expand the dialogue that needs to take place so that people’s voices are heard undistorted, but, at the same time, to explore ways that we can keep from balkanizing ourselves so totally that it becomes illegitimate to reach and speak across cultures.

You don't remember that you and I exchanged a few comments in June of 2021 on your Facebook page (here's a link to that page, for those of you who have FB accounts). 

At the time, you were looking for someone who could get your book about boarding school into Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland's hands. You wrote that you think "America, for the moment, seems to be willing to hear that story." You went on to say:

Native America wants the story of the boarding schools known; Deb Haaland wants the story known; I want the story known. Otherwise, I wouldn't have written the book. We need to seize the moment.

Your request generated a lot of comments from people who like the book. They agreed with you, that Haaland should read your book. I replied to your request for an intermediary with this:

A strong NO to getting his book into anybody's hands. People can learn about boarding schools from Native people. It is long past time that white folks -- however well-intentioned -- stopped speaking for/about us.

You replied to me, saying:

And well it should be. And I agree that Native people should tell their own stories. But I suspect that you have not read my books or delved into who I am, what my background is, what I do, and why I do it. With a more open mind and heart you might well see that there are some ways to be an ally that do not represent either cultural appropriation or cultural exploitation. I can only control my intentions; I cannot control the response of people to my work. I respect your concern, but I think perhaps you are seeing through a generic lens, which is exactly what non-Native people have done to Native peoples over the years. Do not make the same mistakes from the other side that have been made from the Euro-American side. We need to be larger than that.

Prior to that day in June, I had already been reading your work. I knew who you were. I had begun reading your books and had been taking notes on things that stood out to me. I'm going to share those notes at the bottom of this post.

For now, I want to address a couple of things you said to me. 

In June of 2021 on Facebook, you started out by saying that you agree: Native people should be telling our own stories. But most of your comment is not about that. Instead, you said I need to have a more open mind and heart. You say you don't think you are appropriating or exploiting Native culture. You say you respect my concern, but then you equate me--a Native woman advocating for Native writers--with the actions of white people. You say "we need to be larger than that" but what you mean is that I need to be "larger than that." In other words, you don't want me to criticize you and other white writers who create stories about Native people. 

In the April 13 MinnPost comment, you suggest that efforts to prioritize Native writing is a step towards "balkanizing" who gets published. You think a prioritization of Native voices will make it  "illegitimate" to reach and speak across cultures. 

To me that sounds like conversations I've had with many white people who don't like what we say when we speak up about what you are doing. Whether it is a mascot or a book or story, white folks just want us to go away and be quiet so you can go on doing what you're doing. Some do what you did: accuse us of balkanization. 

You respond as if we are oppressing you. You sound like you think white writers are being oppressed. Are you? Consider the facts. How many books by Native people get turned into movies, compared to books by white writers that get turned into movies? In recent years, your book was made into a movie. The one about the Osages and the FBI also got made into a movie. 

Returning to books: I study the data of what gets published. Maybe you don't know about that data. Here's an infographic of books in 2018. Clearly, white writers get far more books published than we do:

If the 25th anniversary edition of your book had been sent to the Cooperative Children's Book Center in 2018 (your anniversary edition came out in 2019), the staff at CCBC would have put it on the list of books by or about American Indians/First Nations. The infographic shows that 23 of the 3,134 books reflected in the data at that moment in 2018 were categorized as being by or about American Indians/First Nations. 

Now, look closely at the feet of the children on the left side of the graphic. See the shards of glass there? That represents books with problematic content. It is a visual signal that we must consider more than just how many books are published. When I reviewed the 23 books, about half of them were by white writers. In their books, I found stereotyping and romanticization and similar sorts of problems. 

In the end, about 12 books by Native writers were published. I won't say that books by Native writers are free of problems but in my thirty years of studying children's books, I can say that their books are far better than those by white writers.

I've read Neither Wolf Nor Dog and I find problems in it. I know--you have said many times that there are Native people who like your books. I believe you. I'm not one of them. In the MinnPost comment, you also said that you want to know what I think of your books. Below is a sample from my notes. At some point, I will write up my analysis of Neither Wolf Nor Dog. For now, I share these notes to demonstrate why I find your book problematic. 

The dedication

The dedication for Neither Wolf Nor Dog is: "For the silent ones." 

My comments: I assume "the silent ones" in your mind are Native peoples. That dedication was one of many things I noted as I read. I think the dedication echoes a stereotypical way of thinking about Native peoples (as silent, without voice), and that it simultaneously signals to readers that you are a good person doing all you can to help us silent ones. Some find it valorous and see you as a good ally to Native people. As a person who studies representations of Native peoples, I see you as another in a long line of white people who are intent on saving us by speaking for us, by telling our stories for us...  I know--there are Native people who do think of you as an ally. I don't.  

Chapter 1: An Old Man's Request

When the chapter opens, we read that you got a phone call from a Native woman whose grandfather wants to talk to you because he saw the Red Road books that you did. You tell us that you had worked with students on the Red Lake Ojibwe reservation, collecting memories of their parents and grandparents. Those oral histories became the two Red Road books. You tell us you had a tightness in your chest, hearing the woman's words, because the books had "gained some notoriety."  Some Native people did not like what they read in the books because some of it opened "old wounds" or rekindled "family feuds." Most Native people, you assure us, liked the Red Road books--but those ones who did not--they call you to challenge you.  

My thoughts: Showing us that vulnerability invites readers to share that tightness along with you. The way you characterize Native concerns seems to belittle them, and ultimately, feels dismissive. The way you wrote those opening paragraphs works to get readers to ally with you but I want to know more about that project and what the books had in them. Did you let parents and grandparents see what was going to be in the book, before publication? Seems that if you had done that, you wouldn't have gotten blow back. You aren't listed as the author of those two books but you lift them up in these opening passages. It seems you're exploiting that project. It sets this whole phone call in motion. It is the set up for how this book came into being.

The woman who called did not give you her name. You told her you'd talk to her grandfather and you thought she'd put him on the phone but, it turns out, he doesn't like to talk on the phone. You tell us you know that some "very traditional elders" don't like to use the telephone, or, "have their picture taken." 

My thoughts: Your remarks about traditional elders tell readers that you have knowledge about very traditional elders that others may not. You offer that as a reason why the woman's grandfather won't talk on the phone. Something about this feels off to me but I don't have words for it yet.

You tell readers that you are getting more nervous because the man won't talk on the phone. The woman gives you "the name of a reservation." It is a long way from your home. 

My thoughts: Earlier, I noted that you tell us the woman wouldn't give you her name, and now, we are not given the name of the reservation. Because I've read the book, I know that this lack of names matters to the success of your book. 

 

We aren't ever going to know the man's name, because he specifically asks you not to share his information. He just wants YOU to tell his stories because he likes what you did with the Red Road books. 

That secrecy might feel respectful to readers but to me, it feels very exploitative of your readers. You've written the foreword and intro in a way to disarm criticisms of what you're doing in this book. The "old man" of the chapter title has a request and you're going to honor that request. He trusts you, and we're supposed to trust you, too. But, I don't! All of it feels too tidy. 

The upshot of this secrecy is that your name is the only one we know. You are the one who speaks. You are the one who profits from book and movie ticket sales. Maybe you give some of the profits to a Native organization. If you do, that is likely seen as you being a good guy to Native people. Saviorism. 

I've got more notes about your book, but I'll pause there to talk about your book being used in schools.

In your comment to the MinnPost you said that your books are "used in many curricula." I am not surprised, but I am disappointed. What is lost when people use your book instead of ones by Native writers? The opportunity to make Native people and their work visible. Here's what I mean. Let's imagine a classroom.

Teacher to class of juniors and seniors in high school: "Today we're going to start reading Louise Erdrich's The Round House. Erdrich is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. She is the owner of Birchbark Books, a bookstore in Minneapolis. Let's take a look at the website for her tribal nation." 

Using words like the ones I suggested above means that a teacher would be centering Native voices by using Erdrich's book. By taking students to the tribal website, two things would happen. First, the students would find even more tribal voices. And that simple act of visiting a tribal nation's website tells students that Native people use technology. Some of you will think "of course they do" but the fact is there's a lot of people in the US who don't know we exist, today, and some think that "authentic" Indian people live in the woods in (of course) tipis or wigwams. 

The teacher would use present-tense verbs as they talked about Erdrich, her bookstore, and the tribal website. The opportunities for visibility are many! But--the students don't have that opportunity because they're reading your book instead. That bothers me. I imagine you'll say it isn't your fault that they choose you over a Native writer. You're right. It isn't your fault, but I wonder if you've done anything anywhere to help them find Native writers? 

I see that Carter Meland has a comment to you at MinnPost (dated April 14, 2022) and that you replied to him.  You refer to the "own voices" movement as a necessary corrective but immediately follow up with a "But" that argues for your own space. I wish you would spend more of your words lifting Native writers than arguing for your own voice. 

Debbie