Recommended: NEW POETS OF NATIVE NATIONS, edited by Heid E. Erdrich

There are very few books of Native poetry for teachers looking for poems to use with children and young adults. They can, however, get a copy of New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich.

There are several poems in it that I'd use with teens. Consider, for example, Layli Long Soldier's "38." Most people, I'd be willing to bet, need help understanding the significance of that number. The opening stanza's of 38 are a comment on rules, on writing, on storytelling, on history, on expectations, on integrity of telling... terrific words that a teacher would want to spend time on. From that powerful set up, Long Soldier moves on to tell us about the 38:

You may or may not have heard about the
Dakota 38.

If this is the first time you've heard of it, you
might wonder, "What is the Dakota 38?"

The Dakota 38 refers to thirty-eight Dakota men
who were executed by hanging, under orders
from President Abraham Lincoln.

To date, this is the largest "legal" mass execution
in US history.

The hanging took place on December 26, 1862--
the day after Christmas. 

This was the same week that President Lincoln
signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

There's a lot more, after that. Long Soldier's poem is a history told with integrity and respect for the 38 and for Native people.

If you've read Eric Gansworth's young adult novels, you'll definitely want to read the poems he's got in New Poets of Native Nations. His "Speaking through Our Nations' Teeth." It opens with him asking:

When you see me
for the first time
at a powwow or social
across the circle
we dance
in which language and world view
do you form your first
impression 

In the next parts, he talks about some of the things we do in school (diagramming sentences)--which is one world view--and the other? Well... it isn't one where anybody diagrams sentences. That poem is followed by "It Goes Something Like This" which is about two children, going to Carlisle Indian School. And "Snagging the Eye from Curtis" is a brilliant critique of those sepia-toned photographs that far too many people view as authentic.

There are, in total, 21 Native poets in New Poets of Native Nations. Make sure you read Erdrich's introduction, also available online at Lit Hub. There, she talks about putting this volume together. I want to paste the entire Introduction here, but will put one paragraph, instead:

As I conceived of this book, I wanted to select and present a substantial and strong gathering of work by U.S. Native writers. I wanted to avoid the ways Native American poetry, most edited by non-Natives, has been presented—with a lot of apparatus and within binary notions of an easily digestible “American Indian” history or tradition in order to tie contemporary to past in a kind of literary anthropology. I did not want to add to the body of literature that allows “Indians” to exist in the past, or in relation to the past, but remain invisible in the world we all inhabit now.

New Poets of Native Nations. Get several copies! Give them away. Some books are described as "a gift" to readers. This one is that, for sure. Published in 2018 by Graywolf Press, I highly recommend it.

Highly Recommended! Kiss by Kiss/Ocêtôwina: A Counting Book for Families, by Richard Van Camp

You know how some things are so dear that you hold that thing close to your heart and give it a squeeze? Every year, Richard Van Camp creates books for young people that make me want to do that. This year, it is Kiss by Kiss/Ocêtôwina: A Counting Book for Families. His oh-so-perfect words in this board book were translated into Plains Cree by Mary Cardinal Collins.

It starts with "One kiss, two kiss, three kiss, four!" and so on. Facing these pages of words in English and Plains Cree are delightful, endearing photos of babies and toddlers and grown-ups, planting kisses. 

That cadence is interrupted by this photo, and, a smooch!

That smooch launches us into a series of pages where we read "Your kisses are so sweet!" and "Your kisses are so fun!" and "Your kisses are as welcome as the light from the sun!" 

I read Kiss by Kiss/Ocêtôwina after having spent a raucous hour playing with my niece's little girl. We played with a stuffed bear and a snowman, chasing each other around my mom's house. After each spree down the hall, she looked up at me with her twinkling eyes that said 'let's do that again'--and so we did. The photo on the right is the two of us, at one moment in that zany playtime!  

That 'let's do it again' look is where Kiss by Kiss ends, too. The final page is "Please can we start again at kiss number one?" It'd be fun to read this book to her (and the bear and snowman)! 

This is one of those books you'll want to give to lots of people. And--lots of people are in it! Some people might look at the photos and think the people in them don't "look like Indians" because far too many people carry stereotypical ideas of what Native people should look like. In fact, every person shown in the book could be a tribal member or citizen of a Native nation! 

In every book, Van Camp gives us so much. Native people see things others may miss, but that's ok. Those are, to use Cynthia Leitich Smith's phrase, "brushstrokes" that are subtly placed mirrors for Native readers. 

Published in 2018 by Orca, Richard Van Camp's Kiss by Kiss/Ocêtôwina is highly recommended. Get a copy. You'll see. It is a delight!

Recommended: YOUNG WATER PROTECTORS: A STORY ABOUT STANDING ROCK by Aslan and Kelly Tudor

Aslan and Kelly Tudor's Young Water Protectors: A Story About Standing Rock is a non-fiction photo-essay published by EagleSpeaker Publishing.

The "about" page tells us that the author, Aslan Tudor, was eight and nine years old during the period depicted in the book, and a citizen of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas. Information provided is his first-hand account of time spent at the camps when he was there in 2016.

Told from the point of view of a child, 

Young Water Protectors is a rare kind of story 

of a unique period of activism 

with Native people from so many nations 

standing together to fight a company

exploiting people and hurting earth's resources. 

There's a lot to think about, packed into this slim book. Tudor touches on the school at the camp, and what he learned there but he also notes that activity at some of the construction sites wasn't safe. It was safer for kids to stay in camp. For readers who want more information about that, adults can fill in the gaps according to what they know about the reader.

Recommended: UNPRESIDENTED: A BIOGRAPHY OF DONALD TRUMP by Martha Brockenbrough

I haven't done a rigorous study of biographies of US presidents. The ones I have looked at over the years are lacking in one way or another. Most leave out Native peoples and nations that presidents interacted with--or the information that is included, is biased.

In Who Was George Washington? (one of the books in the very popular "Who Was" series published by Penguin), we read that when he was young, George Washington worked as a surveyor--someone who measures and marks property boundaries--to make money. It was "a rough life" in the "wilderness," sleeping on the ground, cooking over open fires, and, he had to "steer clear of hostile bands of Indians" (page 18). That book came out in 2009. Many people in children's literature think that Russell Freeman wrote excellent nonfiction for kids, but his writing was biased, too. In his biography of Abraham Lincoln, he wrote that Lincoln's father was "shot dead by hostile Indians in 1786, while planting a field of corn in the Kentucky wilderness" (p. 7). Titled Lincoln: A Photobiography, it won the Newbery Medal in 1988. I hope that a book that has bias like that in it would not be selected, today, for that medal.

Was Washington racist? What about Lincoln? And--are the authors of those books racist? The point: there's a lot to consider in how someone writes about a president.

Let's turn now to Martha Brockenbrough's Unpresidented: A Biography of Donald Trump, due out on December 4th from Feiwel and Friends. Anybody who has followed the news about the current president of the US knows that he's said a great many racist and sexist things. Brockenbrough doesn't shy away from any of that. I'm glad it is all here, documented, for young adults (the book is marketed for kids from age 12-17). I'm also glad that she's included information about Native people.

On page 98 she provides an account of trump's (I do not use a capital letter for his name) 1993 testimony at a hearing in Congress, at the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Native American Affairs. She quotes him saying that "they don't look like Indians to me..." He was talking about Native people of tribal nations in Connecticut who had casinos that hurt "little guys" like him. At the time, trump was trying to make a deal with the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.

A few pages later, Brockenbrough provides readers with the name of another tribal nation. In 2004, the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians ended their contract with trump's hotel and casino company, because his company was in financial trouble.

It is terrific to see Brockenbrough being tribally specific. By naming these nations, she is pushing back on a widespread ignorance in the US. Too many people use the word "Indians." And it often leads people to think of Native peoples in stereotypical ways.

Another good point of Unpresidented is information on page 100, about tribal membership. Succinctly, Brockenbrough writes that tribal nations make determinations about their citizens. What they look like doesn't matter.

Oh! Another thing to note is the part about arrowheads! It tells us a lot about the trump family and its values. I recommend Unpresidented and welcome your comments if you read it. And--kudos to Brockenbrough for writing this book! Reading the news every day is tough on my psyche. Spending the time necessary to write this very comprehensive and in-depth book must have taken a toll on her.

Congratulations to Traci Sorell for Orbis Pictus Honor Award!

Some terrific news today (November 17), from the 2018 conference of the National Council of Teachers of English!

Traci Sorell's We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga 

was selected for NCTE's 2018 Orbis Pictus Honor Award! 

The announcement was made at the awards event. Celeste Trimble tweeted this photo when Traci's book went onto the screen:

And over at the Charlesbridge (publisher of Traci's book) booth on the exhibit floor, the folks staffing the booth probably did a happy dance and put a homemade sticker on the book! Here's a photo from there:

See those stars on the right? Those indicate starred reviews from the review journals: Kirkus, Horn Book, School Library Journal, and Shelf Awareness.

NCTE's award is for nonfiction. Congratulations, Traci! This is wonderful news!

And.... back at 7:09 PM to say that I went over to the Charlesbridge twitter account to share the URL for this post and they've got a new photo up, of the official seal:

Recommended! Art Coulson's UNSTOPPABLE: HOW JIM THORPE AND THE CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM DEFEATED ARMY

Note from Debbie on Nov 28, 2023: Due to my concerns over Art Coulson's claim of being Cherokee, I am no longer recommending his books.  

This is a quick post to recommend Art Coulson's Unstoppable: How Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team Defeated Army. Published by Capstone, it is one that I think teachers can use in the classroom, and that every public and school library ought to have on the shelves.

Recommended! BABY RAVEN and BABY EAGLE by Crystal Worl

If there is a basket (or shelf) of board books in your home, classroom, or library, you best get Baby Eagle and Baby Raven.

They're part of the Baby Raven Reads series published in 2016 by Sealaska Heritage Institute. Once you open each book, you'll see they're bilingual. Here's the page for otter, in Baby Raven (I am sharing that page because someone very dear to me likes otters):

There, you see the word otter (in English) and in Lingit (that is what the Tlingit language is called), and beneath the words, you see Worl's clan illustration of an otter. All that is layered on top of an illustration by Nobu Koch. I love these books, and Worl's work! Get these two books but head over to her website and see what else she does!

Recommended! Rebecca Roanhorse's "Thoughts on Resistance" in HOW I RESIST: ACTIVISM AND HOPE FOR A NEW GENERATION

Editors note, Dec 31, 2018: Yesterday, I was updating the photo gallery of Native writers and went to Roanhorse's website to make sure I identify her as she identifies herself, but her bio no longer says she is Ohkay Owingeh. On Twitter today she said she's Indigenous. I'm not sure how to refer to her at this point. "Indigenous" without a specific tribal affiliation is not sufficient to be included on AICL. This has never happened to me before, so... not sure what to do! --Debbie


Yesterday, I wrote about the work of an Indigenous artist in We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices, an anthology edited by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson. Today, I'm back to talk about a different Indigenous artist, in another book with the theme of resistance.

I'm talking about Rebecca Roanhorse's "Thoughts on Resistance" in How I Resist: Activism and Hope for a New Generation, edited by Maureen Johnson. Here's the cover--and isn't it gorgeous?

Second from the right on the top line is Roanhorse. She is Ohkay Owingeh/Black. In her essay, she writes about being asked to participate in this project:

I felt a mistake had been made. I'm not an activist.

She goes on to say she's a writer off science fiction and fantasy. That's not activist work, she thought, but then, she remembers that she's an Indigenous woman, and...

Every day I am alive, I am resisting those who would reduce Native Americans to a footnote in a bad history book. 

There's several more "Every day I am alive..." passages and then,

Some of us have been resisting since 1492.

Awesome, right? She then refers to the Indigenous people who went to Standing Rock. She didn't go, but tells us that we can't all go to sites like that, and that some of us aren't "cut out to be frontline pipeline warriors." If, she writes "you're more like me, write." She suggests that Indigenous teens imagine worlds with Indigenous people in them--where they are not just surviving, but thriving. This, next part, for me, is precisely what I think this anthology is meant to do: inspire teens, to write!

... imagine Natives in space stations, Natives battling the Empire, Natives slaying dragons...

There's more, but I want you to get the book and read the rest of her essay, and the others in How I Resist, too! They're all different in length, style, and format (some, for example, are interviews). Published in 2018 by St. Martin's Press, I definitely recommend it!

Highly recommended! DREAMERS by Yuyi Morales

The first library I knew as a child was a cardboard box full of books. You see, I went to a government day school on my reservation. We didn't have a library. What we had was a librarian from the nearby public school, who would drive to our school every couple of weeks, with a box full of books. That was our library. That I remember it is an indicator of how much books mattered to me then, and now.

Libraries of books are, indeed, special places.

Books in libraries, can be very special, too. A lot of people have warm memories of a book they liked. They've also got memories of horrible books, too, so I'll note that as well!

The point is, books touch our lives. Some of them find a place in our beings. They snuggle in and keep us warm in ways that we might not be conscious of all the time, but, they are there. That warmth is what I've feeling today (again) as I read (again) Dreamers by Yuyi Morales.

Why? Because within its pages are books that have found a place in my being, and seeing them in the pages of Dreamers warms me all over again. (A note to my friends and colleagues who study children's books: what is the word to describe an author or illustrator referencing the work of another author or illustrator in their book? Is it intertextuality?!)

Let me show you what I mean. Here's Home to Medicine Mountain by Chiori Santiago. Its illustrations are by Judith Lowry. Published in 1998 by Children's Book Press, I remember it well because it was the first picture book I found that did right in telling readers about boarding schools.

And here is When We Were Alone. Written by David Alexander Robertson and illustrated by Julie Flett, it is also about boarding school. It was published in 2017 by HighWater Press.

Dreamers is essentially a book of memories wrapped up in the embrace of what is possible. We see a mom, and the love she has for her baby as they take journeys together: from one country to another, from one book to another, from one age to another.

Gosh--as I pore over the art and the words and the book covers, I smile again and again. I remember reading some of the other books Morales depicts to my kindergarten and first grade students (they're all grown up now) at Pojoaque Elementary School in the late 80s and early 90s and when I chose to be a stay-at-home mom, I read those books to my dear little one (she's all grown up now, too!).

Dreamers is one I would definitely have read to my students and my daughter. Today, it will invite conversations that will vary tremendously, depending on locale, students, and the dreams of the teachers who gathers students around them at storytime. And the back matter will appeal to puzzlers. Well, maybe "puzzlers" isn't the right word. The back matter includes a list of books that inspired Morales. Finding their covers would be lots of fun! And she's got a paragraph called "How I Made this Book" that lists items she photographed to create the book. With a little one on my lap, I'd be reading that list and looking for the items in the pages of the book. [Back to say that if you head over to The Making of Dreamers at the Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog, you can see photographs of those items.]

My heart is warmed, too, by Yuyi Morales, the person who I've come to know over the last few years. I met her in person in June of 2018 in New Orleans for the American Library Association's annual conference. After lunching together in a tiny eatery, we walked over to the convention center so I could register. My name tag said "retired" because that's what I said when I registered. She said something like "you're not retired" and I told her I didn't have a university affiliation. I didn't really know what to put on the registration form. I said something like "I wonder if I can submit something like bad ass as my occupation (my daughter said that to me once, which was way cool). We laughed and she told me to put it on there. Then the next day when I got my copy of Dreamers, she signed it for me...

See? It says "To Bad ass Debbie!"

That day, we walked and talked for a couple of hours. Laughing and learning from each other: two women who want the world to be better than it is and who--with our work and our words--are trying to help it become a better place. Here's a photo she took:

I didn't mean to make myself such a big part of this review, but in fact, I guess I'm coming full circle at this point.

Books can wrap us in warmth, and those who create them can be beacons for us in difficult times. That's Yuyi Morales. A beacon of warmth, of light, of delight, of life.

_____
Note: Yuyi is not a Native woman. On her website, she writes that was was born in Xalapa, Mexico, and that she is Mexicana. Her book is being reviewed on AICL because it includes Native content.

Review of Jameson's Zoe and the Fawn

Zoe and the Fawn (2006). By Catherine Jameson, illustrated by Julie Flett. Penticton, BC, Canada: Theytus Books.

Little Zoe and her dad are feeding their horses when Zoe is captivated by a fawn lying under an aspen tree nearby. Dad takes a picture. Zoe wonders where the fawn’s mother is, and Dad suggests they look for her. They walk through the spring landscape, spotting a series of creatures that Zoe suspects could be the fawn’s mother: a flicker, a rabbit, and a rainbow trout. No, Dad tells her each time, that is not the fawn’s mother. Finally, they turn around and head back. Again they see the flicker, the rabbit, and the trout, and this time Zoe is the one asserting, “That is not the fawn’s mother.” When they arrive back at the aspen tree, there is the fawn – with its mother. Dad snaps another picture. The horses are glad to see Zoe and her dad.

Jameson tells the story of this Okanagan father and daughter with relatively simple English vocabulary, with some repetitive phrases that invite children’s participation during read-alouds. She also incorporates the Okanagan (Syilx) animal names in parentheses.

Utter ignorance of how to pronounce those words sent me to the Okanagan Nation Web site. (There's no pronunciation guide in Jameson's book.) There I learned that the language is nsyilxcən, and that in July 2018, the Okanagan Nation general assembly adopted the Syilx Okanagan Language Declaration expressing the people’s commitment to the “protection, revitalization and advancement” of their language. There’s something both loving and powerful in that declaration. I was grateful that the info about it included comments from some of the Okanagan leaders who were present. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip: “This is an international standard of nationhood. Forty-five years ago, the majority of our people were fluent, sadly that’s not the case anymore. This Declaration is a public expression of intent to stay together. This Declaration contains our laws on how we care take our culture and everything that represents. Without the language it’s impossible to undertake these tasks. It’s at the core of our being, there’s no question.” And Chief Byron Louis stated that the Declaration was “the most significant document I have ever signed.”

Wow.

So – those animal names Catherine Jameson uses in Zoe and the Fawn back in 2006 have important context. They hint at a language preservation effort that was surely underway back then, and that has lasted, as the Okanagan Nation language Web site suggests, “a long time”. I went to the Web site looking for a pronunciation guide and found a people’s commitment to their language and all that it has meant and can mean to them.

Though my wish to be able to say the words in Jameson’s book is important to my non-Okanagan self, my pronunciation/ambition is not what will preserve the language. In fact, it’s beside the point. Those words are there for the Okanagan parents, elders, teachers, and children who use the book. And I hope they do – it was a BC Book Prize Honor Book some years ago. But Zoe and the Fawn also works for anyone who wants to share or hear a story of a child and her dad encountering the natural world. You don’t have to know those nsyilxcən words to “get” the book. But just seeing them on the page is a healthy reminder that there’s a whole world – worlds, really – of knowledge and speech and understanding out there that we don’t usually think about. (And you can find out more about nsyilxcən from links on the Okanagan Nation web page.)

I like Zoe and the Fawn a lot. The English text is highly readable and engaging for kids who are still learning to read English – and for younger ones, who will enjoy chiming in on the repetitions. Julie Flett’s illustrations (which I believe are cut paper plus pen-and-ink) capture Zoe’s sense of wonder, the beauty of the awakening world of spring, and the essence of the creatures Zoe and Dad encounter. The fish are especially lively, and Flett has a knack for including cool things that aren’t in the text – like the turtle who joins Zoe on one page, or the activity in the pond where the trout resides. Being married to a photographer, I found Zoe’s dad with his camera to be a nice touch. And Zoe’s quite expressive and adorable in her green coat and orange boots.

Zoe and the Fawn: highly recommended!

-- reviewed by Jean Mendoza

Highly Recommended: INDIGENOUS WRITES: A GUIDE TO FIRST NATIONS, METIS & INUIT ISSUES IN CANADA, by Chelsea Vowel

In this morning's mail is a letter from a parent in the UK who is looking for resources with basic information she can share with her children, especially about Indigenous peoples in Canada.

At some point, this parent was told that if a Native person in Canada leaves their reserve for a big city, they lose some rights on their reserve. Is that true, she wonders, and does it apply to every Indigenous nation?

My guess is that it might be true on one, but not on all--but that is a guess because I'm not in Canada. Chelsea Vowel's Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada is the first place I'd look for information.

It is concise, packed with information, and in some ways, humorous. The title of the first chapter, for example, is "Just Don't Call Us Late For Supper: Names for Indigenous Peoples." What Vowel does there is poke at the dreadful ways that non-Native writers come up with names for Native people. I can imagine a snarky White mother telling her kid who is always late for supper "Your Indian name is Late For Supper." That sort of thing happens a lot. People think it is funny--but how people name their children ought never be something that others joke about.

That said, the chapter is not about personal names. Vowel begins with a list of words that are not acceptable: savage, red Indian, redskin, primitive, half-breed, squaw/brave/buck/papoose. Then she provides a terrific overview of names broadly used for Indigenous peoples, and specifics, too.

Published in 2016 by HighWater Press, I highly recommend, Indigenous Writes by Chelsea Vowel. Get a copy for your public or school library and let teachers and parents in your community know about it! Put it on display!

Alexis Blendel's essay on SHE SANG PROMISE: THE STORY OF BETTY MAE JUMPER: SEMINOLE TRIBAL LEADER

Editors note: Alexis Blendel submitted this review at the end of May, 2018. AICL is pleased to have her essay on She Sang Promise: The Story of Betty Mae Jumper, Seminole Tribal Leader featured here. Alexis Blendel is one of the Seminole and Miccosukee teens who tweet from @OfGlades. 

****

Alexis Blendel's review essay of 

She Sang Promise: The Story of Betty Mae Jumper, Seminole Tribal Leader

This is my last year of Florida Virtual School. Soon I will take a trip with my cousin to the Glades to visit the Big Cypress Reservation. My mother is originally from Hollywood, but I want to see the Glades again. It is a sacred place for Seminole people. It is an ecosystem where both alligators and crocodiles live. During many wars, the Everglades hid us from our enemies who were too scared to go there.

The history of my people in Florida is more complicated than I was taught by white teachers in school. They still have the conqueror’s hive mind. They are obsessed by the purity of what they call the original tribes of Florida. That’s a misunderstanding and a way to criticize our land rights and income. We are descendants of the Creek people. We lived for thousands of years as hundreds of tribes with the same linguistic family—Maskókî. Our families were free blacks and fugitive slaves. We are survivors of Spanish Missions. It is only the name Seminole that came later.

When I think about our history, I think about Betty Mae Jumper. Have you read this beautiful book about her?

She Sang Promise: The Story of Betty Mae Jumper, Seminole Tribal Leader, is by Jan Godown Annino; illustrations by Lisa Desimini. It is a book for young children. Like many Seminole stories, it is interesting and enjoyable for all ages.

The book is written like poetry. It is a creative telling of Betty Mae’s life. It starts in the Glades. In words and colorful images it shows what that kind of life was like.

An itchy black bear takes a palm tree scratch, leaving soft fur tufts that swamp mice fetch. Seminole women trailing patchwork skirts reach across chickee floors. 

This is a place of belonging and peace. Betty Mae Tiger is from there.

The baby, born in the wild heart of Florida,

daughter to Seminole Medicine Woman 

Ada Tiger, granddaughter to Seminole 

Medicine Woman Mary Tiger, is

Betty Mae Tiger.

I don’t like the word WILD. I’m not sure I like the word HEART either. There have always been wild plants and animals in the Glades and it is the heart of Florida Seminole country. But those words remind me of books by white writers, like Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. I think She Sang Promise is a good book, but it also shows that a white writer will make some choices that a Seminole writer would not choose.

This book repeats a story I have heard from other sources. Betty Mae’s mother is from the powerful Snake Clan. As a matter of fact, Betty Mae will become the last living matriarch of the Snake Clan. Betty Mae’s father is a French trapper.  Elders believe that Betty Mae’s French father and her family’s Christianity gave her bad spirits: How-la-wa-gus. Some elders come to grab five year old Betty Mae away from her home in Indiantown, to throw her bad spirits in the swamp! Her uncle chases them away and her family packs up and takes her to live safely at the Dania Reservation in Fort Lauderdale.

Betty Mae told that story all her life. I wonder if the people in Indiantown were afraid--not of bad spirits--but of her white father having some control over them and coming into their community. When Betty Mae was born in 1923, white men had already done every terrible thing they could think of to Seminole people. Maybe that was the real How-la-wa-gus. No one that I know can say for sure.

My father is white and I don’t know him. Not because my mother’s family chased him away, but because he is not interested. I’m glad this book never uses the hate word ‘half-breed.’ I have been called that. I’m sure Betty Mae was called that many times. Some people think it’s a normal word to use.

She Sang Promise includes Seminole lessons about Little Turtle and the Wolf and Grey Bear. It talks about the food we ate, the medicine we used and the clothes we wore in the days when Betty Mae was young. The traditional patchwork long skirt is something white Floridians think of when they think of Seminole women. I wear this dress on certain occasions. I do not do it to entertain white people. I don’t live someplace where I can wear it naturally, every day. If I wore it every day, tourists would think I was doing it for them. 

I love seeing pictures of Betty Mae. She always dressed in Seminole style, as shown on the cover. The vibrant colors of the cover are reflected in the illustrations, which accurately show Seminole culture, throughout the book. 

Betty Mae saw people reading and she wanted to learn to read. The problem was that she wasn’t allowed to go to white schools in Florida and she wasn’t allowed to go to black schools either! White men made these decisions then, and they still do. You can see that in Florida schools today.

Betty Mae went to the Cherokee Indian Boarding School in North Carolina. Her teachers were Quakers. This was a good experience for her, unlike other Native children in boarding schools. She learned fast and skipped many grades. Then she went to Kiowa Teaching Hospital and trained as a nurse. Then,  

Betty Mae returns home to work with the 

people she loves on the land she loves. 

She becomes a nurse in Seminole country, like her mother, who was a Medicine Woman. These pages in the book are beautiful!

Betty marries Moses Jumper of the Panther clan. He is a star alligator wrestler. One day when he is sick, Betty Mae gets in the ring to wrestle alligators. Desimini's illustration of that will inspire children and make them laugh. Some animal rights people will not like it because they don’t understand Seminole culture.

Betty Mae grew up in a time of change for the Seminole. She accomplished many things. As an adult, 

Betty Mae travels throughout the Everglades.

Where families live, interpreting in two

Seminole languages—Creek and Mikasuki.

Working with the people to represent their

Choice, she helps set up a Tribal Council

In 1957.

She helps start Seminole Indian News in 1961.

She is an interpreter in courtrooms and

Emergency rooms.

She is a voice for her people. 

I feel such pride, reading about Betty Mae! Especially because, in 1967, Betty Mae is elected as the first woman Tribal Chairman! I’m glad that Annino calls her a Tribal Chairman instead of the Chief.

She Sang Promise was published the year I turned ten and I grew up with it. My mother read it to me many times. I think it was important for me to see this book.  Reading it now as a young woman, I see some things in it that I would want to change. I don’t like that it includes the Seminole name Betty Mae’s grandmother gave to her. I won’t write it here. In her lifetime, white people always asked Betty Mae, “What is your Indian name?” I think it’s none of their business.

I would still share the book with Seminole children. Betty Mae’s son, Moses Jumper, Jr. wrote the afterward. That means he respects the book. It’s important for Florida Seminole children to have role models and for everyone to realize that Seminoles are not just a college football team!

Sho na' bish for reading my review!

PS: If your children like this book, they will really like the book Betty Mae Tiger Jumper wrote. It is called Legends of the Seminoles.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Eric Gansworth's GIVE ME SOME TRUTH

The title of Eric Gansworth's new book is Give Me Some Truth. As I read about Carson and Maggi, I marked one page after another. The truths in their lives made me laugh and made me cringe, too!

There were moments when I thought "Don't do that, Maggi!" and others were I cheered for what she was doing.

What I share today are specific passages from the first two chapters of the book and why I like them. Let's start with a description of the book:

Carson Mastick is entering his senior year of high school and desperate to make his mark, on the reservation and off. A rock band -- and winning Battle of the Bands -- is his best shot. But things keep getting in the way. Small matters like the lack of an actual band, or his brother getting shot by the racist owner of a local restaurant.

Maggi Bokoni has just moved back to the reservation with her family. She's dying to stop making the same traditional artwork her family sells to tourists (conceptual stuff is cooler), stop feeling out of place in her new (old) home, and stop being treated like a child. She might like to fall in love for the first time too.

Carson and Maggi -- along with their friend Lewis -- will navigate loud protests, even louder music, and first love in this stirring novel about coming together in a world defined by difference.

Now, my thoughts!

In chapter one, we're inside Carson's house on Memorial Day weekend, 1980. His brother, Derek, comes into Carson's room. He's got a bullet wound in his rear end. Carson helps him stop the bleeding. They're doing this as quietly as they can because they don't want their parents to know about it. In the description, you read that Derek got shot by the racist owner of a local restaurant. We learn about how that happened, later in the book.

A passage in chapter one that I like a lot is when Carson tells us that Derek had "hit the jackpot in the Indian Genes roll of the dice" (p. 4). You wondering what that means? When Derek came into Carson's bedroom, Carson noticed he was not looking so good and tells him "You look kind of, um, pale." What Gansworth is getting at, there, is the range of what Native people can look like--even within the same family. Most people in the world think that we all have straight black hair, and dark skin, and high cheekbones...  You know what I mean, right? If you don't, take a stroll down the aisle of the romance novels next time you're in the bookstore. Or, pull up a book seller website. Look for the ones about about Native men, you'll see what I mean.  The fact: that image is a stereotype -- and it is something that Carson is dealing with.

In chapter two, we meet Maggi! The book description tells us that she has just moved back to the reservation, but that happens at the end of the chapter. Chapter two opens with Maggi and her sister, Marie, who are sitting at a table at Niagara Falls, selling handmade Indian souvenirs they've made. We learn that Maggi likes to do beadwork that isn't traditional. And that she likes to sing and use a water drum. And that it is helpful to their sales if she'd sing and drum, because it attracted tourists. These two girls know how to play to the White guilt of the tourist crowd in other ways, too. I think what they do is hilarious!

Packed in that chapter, though, are some of those truths I was talking about earlier. A certain kind of beadwork is much-loved on the reservation. Now--I imagine some of you read "beadwork" and thought about beaded headbands--but Maggi is thinking about things that tell readers that Native people today... are of this day. We wear baseball caps, but sometimes, those caps are beaded. And because I'm writing this post in the midst of graduation celebrations, I'm seeing a lot of friends and colleagues sharing photos of mortarboards that are beaded (do a search using beaded baseball cap, or beaded mortarboard and you'll see what I mean).

We get another truth on page 17, as Maggi thinks about the permit they have to sell their work, and how it is "keeping the Porter Agreement alive, though the State Parks official vendors have tried for years to break the treaty)." That right there is definitely something that some Native readers will know about, and that the rest of us have to look up. It is history that isn't taught in textbooks--but that is known by those that it directly impacts. I'm really glad to see it and hope that people will look it up. Citizens of the US don't know much about Native history--but it matters a lot in ways they ought to know!

Another part in chapter two that made me laugh was Maggi imagining a painting or beadwork she might do--in the conceptual style that Andy Warhol did... but she'd do "rows of Commodity Food cans, maybe ones we liked ("Peaches") and one we hated ("Meat"), with their basic pictures on the can in case you didn't know how to read" (p. 17). Native people who grew up during that time and got "commods" know exactly what those cans look like. 

As the chapter closes, Maggi's mom tells them they're moving back to the reservation, and we shift back to Carson. I might be back with more thoughts, but for now, I'll point you to Traci Sorell's interview of Gansworth, over at Cynsations. And I'll recommend that you get a copy of Give Me Some Truth. It comes out on May 29. I've read the ARC I got some weeks back, and have an e-book copy on order. And--if you're going to ALA in New Orleans, get a signed copy! Gansworth will be there.

Published in 2018 by Arthur A. Levine (Scholastic), I am pleased as can be to say that I highly recommend Give Me Some Truth! 

Recommended! With joy! BOWWOW POWWOW, written by Brenda J. Child, translated into Ojibwe by Gordon Jourdain, illustrated by Jonathan Thunder

Due out on May 1 of 2018 is an absolutely terrific book, Bowwow Powwow written by Brenda J. Child (Red Lake Ojibwe). The story she tells was translated into Ojibwe by Gordon Jourdain (Lac La Croix First Nation), and Jonathan Thunder (Red Lake Ojibwe) did the extraordinary illustrations.

Here's the description:

Windy Girl is blessed with a vivid imagination. From Uncle she gathers stories of long-ago traditions, about dances and sharing and gratitude. Windy can tell such stories herself–about her dog, Itchy Boy, and the way he dances to request a treat and how he wriggles with joy in response to, well, just about everything. 

When Uncle and Windy Girl and Itchy Boy attend a powwow, Windy watches the dancers and listens to the singers. She eats tasty food and joins family and friends around the campfire. Later, Windy falls asleep under the stars. Now Uncle's stories inspire other visions in her head: a bowwow powwow, where all the dancers are dogs. In these magical scenes, Windy sees veterans in a Grand Entry, and a visiting drum group, and traditional dancers, grass dancers, and jingle-dress dancers–all with telltale ears and paws and tails. All celebrating in song and dance. All attesting to the wonder of the powwow. 

This playful story by Brenda Child is accompanied by a companion retelling in Ojibwe by Gordon Jourdain and brought to life by Jonathan Thunder's vibrant dreamscapes. The result is a powwow tale for the ages.

Frankly, there's so much I love about this book that I'm not sure where to start!

Direct your eyes back up to that cover. That's Windy with her uncle, in his truck. Right away, I am grinning. See, when we were kids, my dad had a white truck, but my little brother's favorite color was green, so my dad took his truck to one of those discount paint shops (ummm.... I suppose a lot of you are going, 'what is that'? but some of you know EXACTLY what I mean) and had it painted green! And we all went everywhere in that truck. Our dogs, did, too. Sometimes they were up front in the cab, and sometimes they were riding in the back, just like Itchy Boy is on the cover. What I mean to say is that the cover for Bowwow Powwow has an immediacy that Native kids are gonna respond to. It is, in other words, a mirror of the life of a Native kid.

Moving beyond the cover, I can tell you how much Native kids who do every thing with their dogs are going to like it. By every thing, I mean Every Thing. For Windy, that includes fishing (the page of ice fishing is hilarious) or, curling up together for the night, like she does with Itchy in this bit I'm inserting below... Or I can tell you that parents and teachers helping kids learn Ojibwe are going to like it. I love seeing Indigenous languages in kids books!

Or I can tell you that kids who go to powwows are going to love it. That illustration of Windy sleeping launches Bowwow Powwow into a dream sequence that I adore. At that point in the story, Windy is at the end of a very good powwow that is going on, late, into the night. She's fallen asleep, listening to a drum.

She dreams of the elders who teach her, and the veterans who are in the Grand Entry, and the traditional dancers, and the grass dancers, and the jingle dancers, and the fancy dancers... but they're all dogs!

I cannot say enough how perfectly Jonathan Thunder's illustrations capture each one of those dancers, in just the right moment. That just-so tilt of the head, or the arm, or a knee... 

On their way to the powwow, Windy's uncle told her about dances that came before the powwow. As they drive, he's passing along some oral history about dancers going from house to house, singing "we are like dogs." And, the people in the houses gave them gifts of food, or maple sugar candy, or beads. The dance is about generosity, about sharing. In the back of the book, there's a note about that particular dance and how it was misunderstood and misrepresented by anthropologists who erred in calling it a "begging dance." We Pueblo Indians have a similar problem. Outsiders didn't understand a dance we do that includes a sharing of foods and other items. One outside writer, in particular, wrote a children's book where she misrepresented it as a food fight like you see in a cafeteria. Outsiders. Ugh.

I can tell you that those of us who know something about sovereignty are going to spot something in here that's gonna make us say "YEAH" (it is the license plate on the truck).

What I mean is this: there's many points in Bowwow Powwow where the words or art tell us that this is an #OwnVoices story! The three people who gave us this book know what they're doing. I highly recommend it for every school and public library. I know--I'm going on a bit about its significance to Native readers--but non-Native readers will enjoy it, too. It is tribally specific, and it is set in the present day, and it beautifully captures Ojibwe people. Pardon my corny "what's not to love" --- because this book? It is an absolute delight! Head right on over to the Minnesota Historical Society's website and order it!