WORSE THAN ROTTEN, RALPH by Jack Gantos and Nicole Rubel

As I move out of my campus office, I'm finding books I've meant to write about...

Did you read Worse than Rotten, Ralph (1978) by Jack Gantos and Nicole Rubel? It is about a cat named Ralph who hangs out with some alley cats and gets into trouble.  I don't think it went out of print. Thirty years later, it is still going strong... even available for your Kindle! It is an engaging story.  Mischief-making is a lot of fun to read about. 





Below is a page from inside, after Ralph meets up with the alley cats. The text on the facing page reads:

"To the park!" ordered the leader. Ralph and the alley cats climbed up into a tree and knocked hats off the passers-by. Ralph knocked off almost as many hats as the other cats.

See the striped cat in the left corner? In a headdress? I guess that alley cat has taken the headdress away from someone hawking a Wild West Show. See him (her) below that cat? With arms upraised, holding a hatchet (tomahawk?)?

NOTE: A headdress is not a hat. Like a yarmulke, it is worn for specific events and ceremonies.

Reading Jack Gantos: An Author Kids Love (Parker-Rock, 2002), I learned that Gantos wrote the text, and Rubel did the illustrations. They were living in Boston at the time. Was there a Wild West show in Boston around then?! On Flickr I found a photograph taken in 1930 of a Wild West Show in Boston... I wonder what prompted Rubel to include the Wild West performer in the illustration?

Parker-Rock says that school librarians chose Worse Than Rotten, Ralph as one of the best books of the year. There are eighteen books about Rotten Ralph.

Australian cover for ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART TIME INDIAN

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



This is the Australian cover for Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian! Wow! It does what Scott Andrews suggested yesterday in his comment to my post about the original cover and one created by a teen reader.

This cover-conversation started on the yalsa-bk listserv when Joy shared the cover the teen created. This morning (reading the yalsa-bk discussion via digest), I read Lucy's email with the Australian cover. She said that basketball isn't big in Australia, so, she didn't think a cover with a basketball would work there.

Doing a search in Google images, it looks like this cover is also the one used in New Zealand. I'm wondering if it is available anywhere in the U.S.?

Notice, too, the comment from Neil Gaiman? It says "I have no doubt that in a year or so it'll be winning awards and being banned."


In my search of covers, I also found a couple of others. This one, with the white background, is the copy I got. It is the cover used on the ARC (advanced reader copy):

This one is for the audio book:

This one, I gather, is the collector's edition. The website with this cover says it is "beautifully designed with a nifty new look that includes a foil-stamped, die-cut slipcase and 4-color interior art." 

And here's a page of that 4-color interior art:

Interesting all around...

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Update, 7:20 CST, June 9, 2011

I sent out a request, asking colleagues to point me to additional covers. Thanks, Alison in the UK, for these from Amazon!

The editors for this version are Gunthild Porteous-Schwier and Ingrid Becker-Ross.  

 

This one doesn't list editors but there is a colon after the title, followed by "Lekturen Englisch."

I clicked on the look inside option. Inside is an "About the Author" page that is not in the U.S. editions I have on my shelf.  The text in this version is in English, but along the margins are numbers that function like footnotes to notes included at the bottom of the page.  The author's note says that Alexie was "often teased and bullied by other children on the reservation." At the bottom is a note that says:

to tease and bully hanseln, tyrannisieren

I think that language is Dutch.

I'll add other titles as I learn of them. 

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Update, 5:38 AM CST, June 10, 2011

Melanie in the UK pointed me to the French cover. See the shadow image on the wall? See the feather? Suggesting his Native identity is a shadow...  It would be fascinating to collect the thoughts and decision making process of the individuals who created the new covers.

John in Illinois suggested a search of Amazon UK. I did so, and found this one. No accompanying info on language, editors, etc... [Update: 6:26 AM CST, June 10. Sarah on child_lit says the language is Japanese.]

Mary in North Carolina pointed me to another cover for the audio book:

Using WorldCat, I found the Spanish version:

I think this is German (please let me know if I'm wrong):

Here's a book talk of Das Absolut:

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Update: 9:08 AM CST, June 13, 2011

Malin in Sweden wrote to point me to the cover used on the Swedish translation:

Cammie submitted a comment (below in comments) directing me to another cover for the French translation:

Dang...

Nothing quite like starting a new novel and running into 'native as in born here, not savage' on the first page.

The book is What Happened to Lani Garver by Carol Plum-Ucci.

Teen-created cover for Alexie's PART-TIME INDIAN

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

On the yalsa-bk listserv, a librarian in California wrote that some books are a hard sell to students because they have unattractive covers. Her example is Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. Here's the cover:

I love the cover. For me, it reflects the narrow way that a lot of Americans see American Indians. Not as people, but as toys in a cowboy and Indian context.  But I am a Pueblo Indian woman. My perspective is different from, say, the students in Joy's library.  One of her students created a new cover for the book. Here's the cover, available at Joy's wiki:

Cassie (another subscriber) says the book cover is great because the basketball and the geometry book speak directly to a teen reader, and that the necklace on the book "adds a touch of the unknown."

It would be interesting to find out which cover appeals to whom. I'm definitely going to ask my nephews on the reservation to tell me which one they'd pick up first... I'll let you know what they say.

What do you think? Which one do you prefer? Which one do you think teens would prefer?
__________

Update, 11:44 AM CST, June 8, 2011
Below are comments I receive on my facebook posts, and, by private email:

Martina, Dine (Navajo) said her teens picked up the book on their own last summer. The cover didn't turn them away. Their actions suggest they were drawn to the book because of the cover.

Susan in Oklahoma works with Creek, Euchee, and white students in their Summer Reading Program. She asked the group and says that they "all liked the original cover best."

"Others: 31%"

The New York Times has an interactive mapping feature called Mapping America available where you can "Browse local data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey..." to see the distribution of racial and ethnic groups in an area of the US by searching on a zip code.

Data is presented as dots that represent specific groups of people. There are green dots for Whites, blue dots for Blacks, yellow dots for Hispanics, red dots for Asians, and gray dots for Others.

There is no dot for American Indians.

Most survey's don't list us as an option. I've gotten several phone surveys over the years about politics wherein the caller is also collecting demographic data. "American Indian" is never one of the choices I'm given. We are, to use the jargon, "statistically insignificant" in terms of the data. We are, however, overrepresented in terms of Native images on commercial products (like Land O'Lakes) or for school mascots. But wait! Those images are stereotypes, not reality. 

Who we are, in reality, is... invisible. Invisible as "other." 

At the Times page, I entered the zip code for Nambe Pueblo in the search box. You can do it to, and see what I mean. Our zip code is 87506. You'll end up on a map that includes Santa Fe. Lot of yellow dots clustered there, and some white ones, too.

If you hover your mouse over the map (at the Times site), specific "census tracts" pop up. In those pop up boxes, you'll get data on that tract. When I hover the mouse over the area where Nambe is located, the data I get says:

Census tract 10103
Population estimate: 1,710
Whites: 13%
Blacks: 0%
Hispanics: 55%
Asians: 1%
Others: 31% 

Interesting! "Others: 31%" is the tribal members of a federally recognized tribal nation.

When I hover the mouse over the area south of Santa Fe where Kewa Pueblo (formerly known as Santo Domingo) is, here's what the box says:

Census tract 9402
Population estimate: 3,574
Whites: 1%
Blacks: 0%
Hispanics: 3%
Asians: 0%
Others: 96%

In that box, "Others: 96%" is tribal members of another federally recognized tribal nation.

Messed up, don't you think? The people (American Indians) that Americans purport to "honor" with mascots and other stereotypical images don't rate high enough for who we are IN REALITY to be listed...  What would happen if all those defenders of that stereotypical imagery rallied around us as people of the present day instead of defending the use of those stereotypes?

A Right to Justice: Native Youth Theater Play about Police Brutality

Photo credit: Charla Bear, KPLU, Seattle

The young people in this photograph are Native actors in A Right to Justice, a play being done in Seattle on June 12th, 2011 at the Rainier Valley Cultural Center. Produced by Red Eagle Soaring, it isn't the play the group had intended to do...  They wanted to do a play about basketball but the young actors couldn't get into it because they are trying to understand police brutality:

This play (written by our students and their teaching artists Drew Hobson and Hannah Franklin) explores our relationship as Natives with police and other authority figures, and touches on the haunting tragedy of Chief Leschi, whose story still evokes the sting of injustice 153 years after his hanging. 

The brutality the play is about spans a great length of time.

On a summer afternoon in August, 2010, John T. Williams, a Native woodcarver, was shot and killed by Ian Birk, a Seattle police officer. An investigation by the Seattle Police Department found the shooting was not justified.

The police officer's dash camera was on during the shooting. In it, you'll see Williams crossing the street in the crosswalk, in front of the police car. As he walks, he is carving a plank of wood. He goes out of camera view.

Birk got out of his car and called out "Hey, hey, hey! Put the knife down! Put the knife down!" He, too, goes out of camera view, and you hear gunshots. The video lasts over six minutes, during which you hear Birk say that he told Williams to put the knife down and that he was using it to carve the board.

This shooting has been featured prominently in Native news media since then. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to Seattle's Native community to see this video. Watching it, I understand how the shooting would shadow the youth in the community, and, I'm glad to see Red Eagle Soaring's efforts to help them process what happened.

TRIBES OF NATIVE AMERICA - series

This morning a librarian in New Jersey wrote to ask about the Tribes of Native America series published n 2002 by Blackbirch Press.

I don't know the series, but did a bit of searching and found a review of the Zuni volume in the series. That review is on Amazon, and it was submitted by Codi Hooee, a library media assistant at Zuni High School. She writes that she was "very disappointed" with the book. The historical information is correct, she says, but many of the captions for photographs and drawings are incorrect. And, she wrote:

What I found most offensive was the use of a photograph of our very sacred Sha'la'ko ceremony. Overall this book was poorly written, an example from the Customs section on page 25, "Among these are the June Rain Dance, held in August,..." The editors needed to be more thorough in researching the topic. 

She doesn't recommend the book.

Here's the cover for the Cahuilla volume. It is the same cover used for all the books in the series. The only thing that changes is the name of the tribal nation, at the bottom. It is a one-size-fits-all cover that suggests to me that the publisher didn't want to take the time or invest much money in developing the series. Codi's review notes that the book lists "the June Rain Dance" that is "held in August." Oops! Didn't the series have an editor who'd catch that sort of error?!

If that is the care and attention given to the entire series, it is not one I'd spend any money on...  If you're considering it for your collection, pass it up.

Tim Tingle and Matt Dembicki at ALA

Tim Tingle, enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and author of some of my favorite picture books, and Matt Dembicki will be at ALA this year as part of a panel that will discuss Dembicki's graphic novel, Trickster.

According to the ALA press release, a third person on the panel will be Michael Thompson, a high school English teacher in New Mexico. Thompson is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Tribe. Forty percent of the students in his high school are Navajo.

The panel, "Trickster: Engaging Readers, Honoring Traditions" is scheduled for Sunday from 4 to 5:30 in room 284 o the Morial New Orleans Convention Center. It is sponsored by ALA's Committee on Rural, Native, and Tribal Libraries of All Kinds, the American Indian Library Association (AILA), and, ALA's Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA).

I'm attending ALA this year and am really looking forward to hearing what they have to say!

Very happy personal news

Lack of posts to AICL are because I was at the Beinecke Rare Books Library at Yale for a week doing research, and after that...
 
I was at Yale for my daughter's graduation!

Yale's "Class Day" ceremony is for undergraduates. The keynote speaker this year was Tom Hanks. Twelve major prizes are announced at Class Day. Liz won the Nakanishi Prize, "awarded to two graduating seniors who, while maintaining high academic achievement, have provided exemplary leadership in enhancing race and/or ethnic relations at Yale College." On Class Day, students wear some kind of hat instead of the mortar board. Liz chose to wear a ball cap from Nambe Pueblo. The Native American Cultural Center at Yale gives Native grads a blue stole. Liz's degree is in Political Science, and she graduated "with distinction." 

My parents, a sister and her son, and a niece and her partner traveled to New Haven from New Mexico by train. It was a three-day/two-night journey on three different trains for them! My brother-in-law flew in from Sacramento. Here we all are (photo taken by woman who offered to do it for us):

What I've said in this post doesn't reflect the joyful emotions of the last ten days... I'm so proud of Liz and so happy that we were all there with her.

Who is this guy?

This is the second time in the last couple of weeks that I have seen this photograph. I first saw it in December of 2010 on the cover of Brenda Stanley's disappointing I Am Nuchu.

This morning, the photo is in my Google Alert for "American Indians." This time, the photo accompanies a article on Mission Network News. The article is about suicide rates of Native youth, and how Ron Hutchcraft Ministries. Photo credit for the photo itself is Ron Hutchcraft Ministries.

Is he Todd, the young man who, through this ministry, turned his life around? Or is he a model? Anybody know?  I'm not home so can't pull out I Am Nuchu to see what the photo credit says. Do you have it? What does it say?

UPDATE: May 20, 2011: See comments! It is a stock photo. A colleague sent me an email, saying the cover credit in the book is to Amy Kolenut. So... an all purpose image. He can be a Native teen in a YA novel, or, he can be "Todd" the Native teen who, thru the ministries of Run Hutchcraft, left his life as a gang leader for a life as a Christian missionary, or "warrior" as Hutchcraft ministries says... 

YA Poetry CD: Moccasins and Microphones

On July 9, 2009 I pointed to the Spoken Word Team from Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS). At the time, they were scheduled to perform at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The team was featured on PBS News Hour, too.

Some background: Santa Fe Indian School was established by the U.S. Government in 1890 as part of an assimilation effort to "kill the Indian but save the man." It was an off-reservation boarding school run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), but unlike most others, it was located nearby the Pueblo Nations its students came from. As such, students who went there had a different experience from students at schools like Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

In the 1970s, federal policies developed by which tribal nations could take over BIA schools. The All Indian Pueblo Council took over SFIS and curriculum was created such that it became relevant to Pueblo peoples.


Today, I'm writing to point you to their CD, Moccasins and Microphones. Anyone who teaches poetry to young adults will find the CD and their performances compelling. Check out this performance:

You can see more at the Selected Poems page of their website.

And... order the CD! It is on iTunes.

Critical Media Literacy: Misrepresentation of Apache Scouts

Last week I wrote about the use of Geronimo's name for Osama bin Laden. Since then I've been researching, reading, and thinking about Geronimo, his people, and how Apaches are portrayed.

One thing I did was search in the Comprehensive Children's Literature Database (CLCD) to see how many items in CLCD have "Geronimo" in the title. One of the results was an image that appeared in Harper's Weekly in 1886. Here's the image (source is Library of Congress):

Right away, I thought "but that isn't how they dressed..."  This is how they dressed (source is White Mountain Apache History):

Harper's led its readers astray. I'm going to see if I can find a copy of that issue so I can see what it said. Periodicals of the time, I think, led readers astray. They published sensational accounts of "atrocities" committed by "savage" Indians. Such accounts scared readers. They were then terrified of Indians. Over and over, you can read that Geronimo "struck terror" in the hearts of settlers.
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UPDATE:  MAY 18, 2011, 10:38 AM---I am inserting this update from the Beinecke Rare Books Library at Yale (using italics to distinguish it from content uploaded previously). In an album of photos taken by Christian Barthelmess, I came across a couple of photographs he took of Apache scouts that include scouts dressed a lot like shown in the Harper's illustration, and scouts dressed as shown in the photo. I did a quick look on the web and found one of the photos here and am inserting it here for ease of comparison. 

 In the photo, there are five men. Here in front of me at Yale is the actual photo. It has much more clarity than the one above. All five hold either a rifle or pistol. All five are wearing moccasins with wraps that rise at least mid-calf. Three are in what is generally called a breech or loin cloth. One is wearing trousers, and the one in the middle is wearing an army uniform. 

The second photo in the album shows a campsite. Four men are in the photo. Two are white, but I can't tell if they are wearing army uniforms. One is sitting down and the other is standing beside a horse. To their left are two Apache scouts. Both of them are holding rifles. All four men are facing towards, and, looking at the camera, which tells me it is a posed photo. One of the Apaches is wearing only the breech/loin cloth and the other is fully dressed in a shirt, trousers, and, a loin cloth over his trousers. This photo is titled but the writing is hard to read. I can make out "Apaches" and "Siera Madre" and "(Mexico)." [An aside: I've found other photos by Barthelmess online that are also in this album. Some of the captions are in the same script, but have different info. In one place, the caption says it is of Sioux women; in the photo I'm looking at here at Yale, the caption says Navajo women. Not sure what to make of why the photographer (or whomever wrote the captions) would identify them as Sioux in one copy of the photo and Navajo in another. They are clearly (to me) Navajo women.] 

So who was this photographer? I'll have to find out...

------------------------------------------------------
It is important to remember that it was war.

Atrocities were committed by soldiers in the U.S. Army, too, as documented in reports of the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. Indians were terrified of soldiers, and of settlers, miners, and mountain men, many of whom scalped Indian men and women.

In his Violence Over the Land, Ned Blackhawk writes about a mountain man named James Beckwourth who was in the west in the 1820s, working for a trading company. Gunning for the Pun-naks (Bannock), Beckwourth wrote that he and his group followed Pun-naks for 45 miles, and then attacked them. The attack continued (p. 172):

"... until there was not one left of either sex or any age. We carried back four hundred and eight-eight scalps, and as we then supposed, annihilated the Pun-nak band." 

I'm going to study Blackhawk's book to see if he talks about how Beckwourth was covered in the press. He does say that Beckwourth exaggerated what he actually did. I'll also read John Coward's book, The Newspaper Indian: Native American Identity in the Press, 1820-90.

For now, the scouts, as shown in Harpers, and as shown in the photograph, invite us to apply critical media literacy skills.

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NOTES OF INTEREST

The pronunciation of "Geronimo"

Many people said (in private emails, but also in comments to articles) that they shout "Geronimo" when jumping into a pool. They note that paratroopers shouted "Geronimo" when jumping out of planes, and that they did this after watching a film in 1939 about Geronimo. I'm trying to get that film. A colleague said I can get it through Netflix.

Anyway, in thinking about that utterance (Geronimo) it occurred to me that, if it is true that the name "Geronimo" can be traced to Mexican soldiers, then, they wouldn't have been saying the name with a G sound as most people say it today. They'd have been saying it with an H sound.

I verified my hunch earlier by digging into archives of Harper's Weekly. In issue 4/10, 1886, there's an article called "The Chiricahua Apache Troubles." It is primarily about the death of Captain Emmet Crawford of the Third United States Cavalry, who was after Geronimo. He was killed by Mexican soldiers. The article says there was fear that his funeral train would be attacked by Geronimo and his band, but that didn't happen. The article references An Apache Campaign by Captain John G. Bourke:

"In Captain Bourke's book he [Geronimo] is called Hieronymo, which is probably the more correct way of spelling the name of this famous warrior than has during the present campaign been adopted in reports from the frontier."

I'm wondering who, in those frontier reports, started using "Geronimo" instead of "Hieronymo." Obviously his name became Americanized (if that is the right word for the change), but who did it, and when?

FAIL: Codename for Osama bin Laden? "Geronimo"

[Note: I am adding links to Native responses at the bottom of this page. If you know of others, please let me know by email or in a comment. See, especially, the statement by the Apache Nation Chairman and the one from descendent Harlyn Geronimo submitted to the U.S. Senate Commission on Indian Affairs.]

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MONDAY, MAY 2nd, 2011
FAIL: Codename for Osama bin Laden? "Geronimo"
by Debbie Reese

A few hours ago news media began reporting that the codename for Osama bin Laden was "Geronimo."

Who came up with that name? Did anyone say "hey wait a minute, let's give this some thought before going ahead with that name..."

Or did everyone say "YEAH. GOOD IDEA! Geronimo was a blood thirsty killer, and so is bin Laden, so, that is a PERFECT name for this operation!"

It is easy to understand why people would think it was a good choice. SOME people, that is...  As you might guess, I think it is a poor choice.

My daughter pointed out how insulting it is to Native men and women serving in the Armed Forces. She's right. It is an affront.

We (people who work with children's books) are, whether we acknowledge it or not, partially responsible for an American citizenry that would think using "Geronimo" for this operation a good idea. Instead of pointing out that "bloodthirsty Indians" in children's books are a biased portrayal driven by a particular agenda, too many of us defend those biased portrayals...  Like the Indians in Matchlock Gun:

See? The not-quite-human "savages" chasing the fair and innocent woman/mother? See the tomahawk in her shoulder? America, and people who write children's books, have been casting and framing Indians as "terrorists" for literally hundreds of years. It is wrong, but it goes on, unchecked, because of the work it does. From framing colonizers as justified in taking land, to drawing on that "savage other" to frame current war efforts.

It is wrong. It is wrong. It is wrong.
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Update, May 3rd, 2011:  I addressed the equating of Geronimo with terrorism in 2009. The Foreign Policy Research Institute hosts free workshops for history teachers. They did one called "What Students Need to Know about Americas Wars." One speaker drew parallels between Apaches and terrorists.

Update, 12:15 EST, May 3rd, 2011: Reactions from Native people:
"What is It with the U.S. Military and Indians?" --- Indigenous Law Professors
Osama bin Laden: code-named Geronimo" --- Ben Carnes, Choctaw activist and writer

Update, 2:40 EST, May 3rd, 2011:
Bin Laden Code-name "Geronimo is a Bomb in Indian Country." Indian Country Today (Native newspaper)

Update, 7:15 EST, May 3rd, 2011:
Geronimo Again? The Indian Wars Continue Ad Nauseam. Columnist Steven T. Newcomb in Indian Country Today

Update, 7:40 PM EST, May 3rd, 2011:
Codename: 'Geronimo' for Osama Bin Laden Mission Angers Some Native Americans. in "The Note" at ABC News.

Update, 8:00 PM EST, May 3rd, 2011:
IndianCountry TV: Journalist Mark Trahant (Shoshone-Bannock) comments on military uses of Native names (personal and tribal)

Update, 8:28 PM EST, May 3rd, 2011:
Senate official: Wrong to link bin Laden, Geronimo

Update, 8:57 PM EST, May 3rd, 2011:
From the NY Times, Leon Panetta's minute-by-minute account:
Panetta: "We have a visual on Geronimo."

Update: 9:41 PM EST, May 3rd, 2011:
Onondaga Nation leaders blast 'Geronimo' codename for Bin Laden at website for Syracuse Post-Standard.

Update: 1:33 AM EST, May 4th, 2011:
Geronimo? Really? Essay by Scott Andrews, professor, American/American Indian Studies, Cal State Northridge

Update: 7:36 AM EST, May 4th, 2011:
National Congress of American Indians Statement on Use of "Geronimo" as Name for Osama bin Laden Operation

Update: 7:49 AM EST, May 4th, 2011:
American Indians object to 'Geronimo' as codeword for bin Laden raid in Washington Post Lifestyle includes quotes from former Marine Tom Holm (he's Creek/Cherokee) and professor in American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona, and from Suzan Shown Harjo, (Hodulgee Muscogee and Cheyenne) president of the Morning Star Institute. (Why did the Post run this in the Lifestyle section?!!)

Update: 8:15 AM EST, May 4th, 2011:
Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to address use of 'Geronimo' as codename at hearing. Indianz.Com (a Native news source)

Update: 3:11 PM EST, May 4th, 2011:
Native American Journalist Association Statement on Geronimo published at Indian Country Today
Osama Bin Laden is No Geronimo by Debbie Reese, published at the Wall Street Journal

Update: 3:40 PM EST, Mar 4th, 2011:
Indian Country Responds to Geronimo, bin Laden Connection Statements Excerpts and statements from Native organizations and Tribal leaders

Update: 5:07 PM EST, May 4th, 2011:
Statement by Jeff Houser, Chairman of the Apache Nation 

Update: 6:45 PM EST, May 4th, 2011:
Video: Interview includes James Riding In, Pawnee, Professor in American Indian Studies, Arizona State University

Update, 9:24 AM EST, May 5th, 2011:
Code name: Geronimo? by Ernestine Chasing Hawk in Native American Times includes responses from Native veterans Tim Giago and Lloyd Goings

Update: 9:36 AM EST, May 5th, 2011:
Geronimo's family reacts to codename Geronimo KOAT News, Albuquerque (video does not include Geronimo's family response)

Update: 10:47 AM EST, May 5th, 2011:
pdf of Letter from Arizona State Representative Albert Hale to President Obama, posted at Turtle Talk

Update: 10:11 AM EST, May 6th, 2011:
Statement from the National Museum of the American Indian 

Update: 12:10 PM EST, May 6th, 2011:
Winona LaDuke, on Democracy Now.

Update: 12:22 PM EST, May 6th, 2011:
Statement from Harlyn Geronimo, on behalf of himself and other surviving lineal descendents of Geronimo, available at Indian Country Today

Update, 12:27 PM EST, May 6th, 2011:
Interview with Jeff Houser, Chair of Fort Sill Apache Tribe, published in Indian Country Today

Update, 12:40 PM EST, May 6th, 2011:
Excerpts from statement made by Chair of the Navajo Nation, published in Navajo Times

Update, 4:53 PM, CST, May 10, 2011:
NPR Interview with Tim Johnson of the National Museum of the American Indian

YALSA's THE HUB interviews Tim Tingle

Over at YALSA's The Hub you'll find an interview with Choctaw writer, Tim Tingle about being part of Matt Dembicki's Trickster (a collection of Trickster stories). In the interview, Tim says:

Every tribe approaches their stories differently. My mentor, the Choctaw tribal storyteller Charley Jones says, “tell the stories”, but make sure the origin is acknowledged. The Choctaw tribe is very open, you don’t have to be Choctaw to tell the story, but you must respect the tribal origins. Matt Dembicki understood this, as well as the importance of the trickster tale.

See that? Tim said he's taught to "Make sure the origin is acknowledged" and "respect the tribal origins." Read the interview with Tim, and, take a look at an interview with Dembicki, too.  One thing I wish Dembicki had done (or the book designer) was to note the tribal origin for each story right up front on the first panel for each story rather than in the back of the book...

A comment after today's session at NMLA 2011

This morning I gave a talk at the New Mexico Librarian Association annual conference. I talked about looking critically at American Indians in books. At the end of my session, a participant handed me a note. As I walked into my hotel at the end of the day, I read the note.

Pretty awesome feedback, don't you think?

First look at Karen Healey's GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD

In December I got an ebook copy of Karen Healey's Guardian of the Dead. I found a lot that I didn't like as I read it, and little that I did like.

It is on my mind today because of a pre-conference workshop I'm giving on Wednesday in Albuquerque at the annual conference of the New Mexico Library Association. I'll be talking about inappropriate use of sacred Native stories. I've got examples of picture books, but not a novel, so I think I'll add Guardian of the Dead to my power point and worksheet set.

With that thought in mind, I was reading online reviews and came across one that hits on many of the same things I noted. The reviewer is Kari, and her review is on the goodreads site.

Are your kids going to Summer Camp?

Today's post is prompted by Nicole, a reader who wrote to tell me about an article called Boys Gone Wild in baystateparent: Massachusetts' Premier Magazine for Families. The article describes the activities of boys who attend Night Eagle Summer Camp in Vermont. I hasten to add that the boys and their leaders do a lot of playing-Indian activities...

In February 2011, I wrote about learning that a group of boy scouts from Louisiana who had been at Nambe Pueblo (that's where I'm from) to study our dances with the intent of performing them in Louisiana. I pointed out that I don't think the scouts would go to a Catholic mass, study the priest and then perform what he did. Our dances are sacred, just like the prayers offered by a priest.

Maybe (I say, with hope) those scouts did not know they were being insensitive. That is probably because they've been in the scouting program for several years where they did all kinds of "Indian" activities that, bit-by-bit, made them unaware that those activities are inappropriate.

When we tell our stories, for example, we don't tell them around a campfire as a means of entertainment. They--like stories from the Bible--are significant to us in some way. In American society, however, they aren't seen as religious stories. Instead, they're "myths" and "legends" and "folktales" that anyone can tell, anytime they want to, as shown in this page from The Berenstain Bears Go To Camp published in 1982. At the time of its publication, the review in Reading Teacher said

"Though Grizzly Bob's Day Camp looks exciting, Brother and Sister Bear are apprehensive. But after spending a few days trying things out, they discover they can have fun."

A chunk of that fun means doing Indian things. Or, in other words, playing Indian. On the page shown here, the cubs are gathered round as Grizzly Bob tells them a story. The clothing Grizzly Bob wears and the way he stands reflect stereotypical pop culture images of Indians.

You can see that sort of stereotypical imagery on things like council patches of the Boy Scouts of America. In Studying Native America: Problems and Prospects (1998 Univ of Wisconsin Press), Russell Thornton writes (p. 299):

Of all the institutions in American society, the Boy Scouts of America have probably done the most damage in miseducating the public about Native American cultures. Although their "Indian Lore" merit badge has recently experienced a dramatic improvement through the advice of anthropologist David Hurst Thomas, the honorary society called Order of the Arrow annually initiatives thousands of boys into the martial, romantic version of Indian culture through ceremonies drawn from the writings of Longfellow and James Fenimore Cooper."

I agree with Thornton but my net is a bit wider. I think the camps children go to each summer are equally responsible. The Boy Scouts of America creates space for this sort of play-Indian activity to continue. The Y-Indian Princess program is similarly problematic. As Thornton says, the BSA has made some changes. So has the Y-Indian Princess program. But, this sort of thing continues, especially in summer camps. Every semester, students in my courses tell me about the summer camps they went to and how they played Indian. After studying American Indians---real ones, not the images of pop culture---they see the summer camp activities in a different light. Some call them embarrassing; others call them racist.

So... are your kids going to Summer Camp? Will you be attentive to the stereotypical activities sanctioned by the camp? Will you say anything, to your children or to the camp? I hope so, because studies show that stereotypical images like these mis-educate children and that they have a negative effect on the self-esteem of Native children. Two good reasons, don't you think, to stop doing this sort of thing?

Top Board Books for the Youngest Readers

Update on Oct 17, 2022: We add to this list, first posted in 2011. If you have additional recommendations, let us know in a comment and we'll take a look!

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Some time ago, I posted three "Top Ten" lists of books about American Indians. Each list was about a specific age/grade level. You will find links to those three lists at the top right side of AICL in the IF YOU'RE STARTING A LIBRARY... section of the site.

Today, I'm adding a Top Board Books list to that section. It isn't a Top Ten list because some of the books are from the same author and titling it "Top Ten" doesn't work. Each of the books are written or illustrated by a Native author or illustrator, and in some way, they are "tribally specific."

Baby Learns about Colors, by Beverly Blacksheep. Published in 2003 by Salina, it is one of a series of eight bilingual books with Dine (Navajo) and English text that feature a baby girl, her growth, and things she learns in a tribally specific context. Other books in the series are Baby Learns about Animals, Baby Learns about Seasons, Baby Learns about Senses, Baby Learns bout Time, Baby Learns about Weather, Baby Learns to Count, and Baby's First Laugh.  For more information, see my essay: Beverly Blacksheep's Board Books.

Boozhoo, Come Play With Us, by Deanna Himango. Published in 2002 by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, this bilingual board book features photographs of toddlers at play. In some of the photos you can see the tribally specific decor of the classroom. The languages in the book are Ojibwe and English. The last page features a pronunciation guide.

I See Me, by Margaret Manuel. Published in 2010 by Theytus, the book can be personalized. By that, I mean that each page has a line of English text about the photo, and, a blank line for parents/teachers to write a caption in their own language. If you wish, the publisher provides captions in a specific language. This book is being given to families through the American Indian/Alaska Native Reach Out and Read program.

Learn the Alphabet with Northwest Coast Art. Published in 2010 by Garfinkle Publications, this board book is one of several that are illustrated by First Nations artists. The back cover provides information about the item and artist whose work is featured on each page. The other book from Garfinkle that I know and recommend is Learn to Count with Northwest Coast Native Art. They also sell puppets, plush animals, stickers, and stamps. Though I don't have any of the items, I think they can be used to enhance the study of the art in the books.

Our Journey, by Lyz Jaakola, illustrated by Karen Savage-Blue. Published in 2001 by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, this bilingual book bids Anin (hello) and Miigwech (thank you) to the east, south, north, west, and to the sun and earth, and to "the One who gave me my birth." Because the illustrations are primarily of pre-contact scenes, you'll want to make sure to use present tense verbs when using the book in settings where you don't have day-to-day interactions with Native children and their families.

Welcome Song for Baby: A lullaby for newborns, by Richard Van Camp. Published in 2007 by Orca, it was given to every baby born in British Columbia in 2008.  Richard is Dogrib (the Dibrib people are in Canada). The book was very well received and reviewed as a book primarily for parents.

That's it... for now. Fourteen books. If you know of others, please let me know! A hearty thanks to Jean Mendoza for working with me on this list, and for being my dear friend.

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Update, March 6, 2012

Add Debby Slier's Cradle Me to this list! Published in 2012 by Star Bright Books, each page has a photo of a Native baby doing something (sleeping, smiling, etc.) and a blank line for you to write down that word in another language. The final pages identify the tribal nation each baby is from.


















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Update, November 18, 2014

Add Julie Flett's exquisite We All Count. It has words in Cree and English.
















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Update, November 4, 2016

Delighted to add these!

Good Morning World, by Paul Windsor (see review):

Debbie Slier's Loving Me (see review):

Celebrate My Hopi Corn and Celebrate My Hopi Toys by Anita Poleahla and Emmett Navakuku (see review):

My Heart Fills With Happiness by Monique Gray Smith, illustrated by Julie Flett (see review):

And, David Alexander Robertson and Julie Flett's When We Were Alone (see review):

And, Richard Van Camp and Julie Flett's We Sang You Home (see review):

Update on Monday, Oct 17, 2022: These board books by Joni Spiess, Angela Y. Gonzales, Yaari Toolie-Walker, and Carla Snow are terrific! Review is here.