GONE WITH THE WIND in Martina Boone's COMPULSION

Eds. note: Updated on June 28 2015 with a list of other children's and young adult books that include a reference to Gone With the Wind. 

Back in April of 2015, I learned about Martina Boone's Compulsion: Heirs of Watson Island. Published in 2014 by Simon Pulse (which is part of Simon and Schuster), the protagonist is a teenage girl named Barrie who moves to a plantation in South Carolina to live with her aunt Pru. The setting is present day.

The island where the plantation is located is haunted, and the house is falling apart. Later, we'll read about malicious Cherokee spirits called "yunwi" who are doing things (loosening screws and the like) to the house at night so that the next day, things come apart when touched. Outside in the garden, however, they are helpful. If Pru leaves food out for them, they will tend the garden.

This is my first post about the book. I've not finished reading it yet. My decision to post right now, before I finish it, is deliberate.

The book is set in Charleston. I started reading it Wednesday afternoon. That night, nine African Americans were murdered in Charleston. When I woke up on Thursday, my social media feeds were about the murder of nine people who were killed in a historically black church of deep significance, by a white person who said [Y]ou've raped our women... 

I read the news stories and then, returned to Compulsion. I came to a part that brought me up cold. On page 150, Cassie (one of the main characters), tells Barrie:

...my theater group and I do Gone With the Wind at night, in front of the ruins.

I read that line and paused. I imagine a lot of readers will pause, too, but that a lot more won't. Most will just keep on reading. Far too many people don't see the novel or movie as racist. (The "ruins" are what is left of Cassie's family plantation.)

After I ruminated on that for a while, I read on. I wondered if Boone (the author) would, in some way (through a character or through the narration), critique Cassie or her group for doing that play.

I didn't find anything more about it until I got to page 237. Barrie and Eight (her love interest) are at the play. The play opens with Cassie and two boys coming onto the stage. They're wearing "aristocratic costumes" and are followed by

...a girl dressed as a slave, who balanced glasses and a pitcher of lemonade on a tray.

Barrie and Eight are engrossed by the production (p. 238):

Neither of them moved again until the audience gasped when Rhett Butler came on stage, played by a light-skinned African-American boy.

"Oh, that's brilliant," Barrie whispered. Everyone around her whispered too, but then the magic of the play took hold again.

When the play is over, Eight wonders "if that was nerve or genius." Barrie replies that it is both. End of discussion. I assume they're talking about casting an African American as Rhett. And, I assume that the girl playing "the slave girl" is white.

I have a lot of questions at this point.

Why were they doing that play in the first place? Since the author includes it without comment, is she among the millions who don't see it as problematic? Or, who have nostalgic attachments to it, such that they can't set it aside?

Why "a light-skinned" boy? Why not just say "African American boy"? Was it necessary that he be light skinned? What does it mean to have an African American boy in this racist play? It reminds me of Ann Rinaldi's My Heart Is On the Ground, in which a Native girl happily plays a Pilgrim in a Thanksgiving play.

I assume that we (readers) are supposed to think that Cassie is enlightened for casting a light skinned African American as Rhett. We're supposed to think that there is racial progress in Boone's Charleston. I don't see racial progress at all, but I wonder if Boone imagined me, or any person who casts a critical eye on Gone With the Wind as a reader of her book? As presented, it reminds me of The Help where good white people help black people.

In interviews of her, I've read that Boone's characters are going to change over the three books. Maybe Boone is going to have Barrie and Cassie step away from Gone With the Wind. Maybe they're going to say "it was dumb for us to do that" or something like that. That is what characters do, right? They change over the course of a story.

I want to poke at that idea a bit.

Let's assume that by the end of the trilogy, Barrie or Cassie (or both of them) reject Gone With the Wind. Readers will move with them to that point. It'll be a win for social justice. But who is it a win for?

Some readers will applaud when Barrie or Cassie see the light. But what about black teens who already see that light? They are asked to be patient until Barrie and Cassie see that light. They, who are the target of racist acts today, have to be patient.

I find it deeply disturbing. The instant that the play is mentioned, somebody in the book has to say WTF so that immediately, readers will think differently.

Am I making sense? Do you get what I'm saying? Help me say it better so that writers won't do what Boone has done.

There's so much more to say.

The white man who murdered nine African Americans in Charleston said "you rape our women." Did you know that there are heated discussions within some circles about whether or not Rhett raped Scarlett? In Boone's book, Rhett is African American. My guess? Boone and her editor had no idea that some would read Rhett-as-African-American as a negative rather than the plus they intended it to be.

Once I hit upload on this post, I'll return to Compulsion. I have a lot of notes about the Cherokee witch and the voodoo priest. As a Native reader, I gather I'm supposed to be patient, too, as a white writer speaks to white readers about racism, in the past, and in the present, too.

Update, Sunday June 21, 2015

I finished reading Compulsion. My review, focusing on Native content, is at Martina Boone's Compulsion. 

Update, Sunday, June 28, 2015

Do you remember coming across Gone With The Wind in these books?

Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. In Chapter 15, Opal is at the library to get a book she can read aloud to Gloria Dump. The librarian, Miss Franny, suggests Gone With The Wind, which she says is a "wonderful story about the Civil War." Opal says that war was about slavery, and Miss Franny says "Slavery, yes," and "It was also about states' rights and money" (p. 101). Gloria Dump is African American and tells Opal she's heard of the book. Opal reads it aloud whenever she's visiting Gloria. On page 135 Opal asks Gloria if she wants her to read some more. Gloria says "Yes, indeed." and "I've been looking forward to it all day. Let's see what Miss Scarlett is up to now."

Just as Long as We're Together by Judy Blume. On page 220, Rachel tells Stephanie "If you feel like reading, there's a really good book on my desk. It's called Gone with the Wind.

More Best of Mad Libs by Roger Price and Leonard Stern. On a page about Romantic Movie Blockbusters, is this: "Gone With the Wind, set during the ___ War, is the story of Scarlett O'Hara, a young, ___-willed woman. She uses her feminine ___ to win back her ___, but in the process loses Rhett Butler, the only ___ she ever loved."

Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch, by Donald J. Sobol. On page 49, Sally talks about Percy, who is a gentleman, and is taking her to see Gone With the Wind. First published in 1965, by Nelson, the 2002 edition is from Dell Yearling, and the 2007 edition is from Puffin.

Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets by Dav Pilkey. In chapter 20, George (the African American character), says "In the past, literally dozens of epic novels have been written that have changed the course of history: Moby Dick, Gone with the Wind, and of course, Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets!"  (Eds note, 6/30/15: I inserted a screen capture of the page with Gone With the Wind.)

Anastasia at Your Service by Lois Lowry. On page 29, Anastasia is thinking of what she'll talk about the next day, working as a companion to an elderly woman. The text reads (p. 29): "Tonight she would have to think seriously about Conversation Topics. Not politics or religion, she knew. Literature, probably. Tonight she would review in her mind all the books she had ever read. Gone With the Wind was one of her favorites. She could talk to people at the luncheon about Gone With the Wind. Why Scarlett didn't marry Ashley Wilkes. Stuff like that."

Do you know of others?


Update, June 30, 2:00 PM
In the comments below, Deborah Menkart pointed to I Lived on Butterfly Hill by Marjorie Agosin. On page 193, 11 year old Celeste is with her aunt. They watch Gone with the Wind: 'Mesmerized, we curl up on the couch and watch all three hours of Gone with the Wind while our mouths turn blueberry-blue. Then I crawl up the stairs to my room and hope that I have a dream about Rhett Butler as I remind myself that, like Miss Scarlett said, "Tomorrow is another day."' 

Update, June 30, 2:07 PM
On Twitter, MelissaA1763 wrote "The Outsiders. Can't remember the specifics, but Ponyboy and Johnny read it while they're in hiding, and Johnny really likes it."

Update, July 1, 9:43 AM
On Facebook, Benji pointed me to Lowry's Number the Stars. I looked it up. It is on page 27: "Mama had told Annemarie and Ellen the entire story of Gone With the Wind, and the girls thought it much more interesting and romantic than the kind-and-queen tales that Kirsti loved." Annemarie and Ellen are playing with paper dolls. Annemarie is being Scarlett. Ellen is being Melanie. They play at getting ready to go to a ball.

Enid Blyton's SECRET SEVEN series

Update on June 18, 2021: Blyton's books are in the news because a site called "English Heritage" notes that people have, in the past, noted racism in her books. I can't figure out why this is in the news, now, but it seems to be related to Black Lives Matter. When I get more information, I'll be back to add it.  Back in 2015, I did a brief post on Blyton's "Red Indians." Today I am adding excerpts from Blyton's The Boy Next Door and this interior illustration from a 1951 reprint of the book (image found on the Enid Blyton website). Obviously, the illustration and the text are very stereotypical. 

Page 16:  When Betty, Robin, and Lucy hear that there's a boy next door, they peer over the fence into the yard to see if they can see him. They see a woman sleeping in a chair and then see the someone (the boy) creeping out of the hedge to the woman. Then, 

The Red Indian suddenly rose to his feet, gave an ear-splitting yell, ran round and round the chair in a very fierce manner, and then disappeared into the hedge again. The woman woke and sat up angrily.

Page 19-20: The three children plan to go next door and scare the boy next door. Lucy asks if Robin has a "Red Indian suit" that she can use. Robin tells her she can use her old one because she got a new one at Christmas. Then, she says 

"Really, you should be a Red Indian squaw, and not wear a proper brave's head-dress with heaps of feathers--but it won't matter for once."

Page 23: The children, wearing their Red Indian suits, lay on their tummies and wriggle along "as Red Indians do." Robin and Betty have played at this for years and frown at Lucy when she makes a stick crack under her:

"Sh!" whispered Robin. "Don't you know that Red Indians never make a sound, silly?"

Page 25-26: Kit (the boy next door) surprises them and ties them up, one by one, to trees:

"Now for a war dance!" he said, "and then maybe I'll try shooting a few arrows at you!" 

He proceeds to yell and whoop, angry that they're tied up but also admiring Kit because "he really did seem exactly like a real Red Indian."

Original post:

Enid Blyton's SECRET SEVEN series

posted on June 18, 2015

Enid Blyton popped up in my news media feed this morning because of an exhibit about her and her work that is on national tour in the UK. Somewhere in my reading about children's literature, I'd read something about her work being controversial. I rummaged around a bit and hit on the golliwogs in her stories. I poked around a bit more and found that she has characters who play Indian ("Red Indian" as it is called in the UK) in the Secret Seven series.

According to The Telegraph, the images of golliwogs and references to them have been "doctored" in books in which they appear. I doubt if the same is true for the playing Indian parts of her books. I ordered The Boy Next Door and will see if any changes have been made. Course, I won't know till it arrives just which edition I'll get!

For now, check out these three illustrations (credit for these images is to the Enid Blyton Society website).

Here's the cover of the 1944 edition. Illustrations for it are by A. E. Bestall:

From what I've gleaned about The Boy Next Door, Blyton's characters peer over the fence and see the kid next door dancing like a Red Indian. Since they play Red Indian, too, they decide to put on their Red Indian costumes and sneak up on that neighbor kid and scare him. So... here they are, sneaking up on him:

But something goes wrong:

When the book arrives, I'll share what I read. Old books, yes, but Blyton is a key figure in children's literature. As such, her work remains influential. In the meantime, head over to the page about this book. There's a lot more illustrations there, and some comments about the story, too. No mention, however, of the problems in a play Indian theme.

Nobody went "huh?" when Rachel Dolezal said she lived in a tipi...

I've been following the news stories about Rachel Dolezal. There are many. All the major media outlets are reporting about--and questioning--her performance of a Black identity.

This post is less about her than about those who apparently believe what she said about her childhood.

In a Feb 5, 2015 interview she gave to Shawntelle Moncy of The Easterner, she said she was born in a tipi in Montana and lived off the land, hunting food with a bow and arrow for most of her childhood.

Nobody, it seems, went 'huh?' when they read those parts of Moncy's article.

Moncy believed her. Moncy's editor believed her. Did someone question it, somewhere? Anywhere? (If you see that questioning, let me know.)*

That lack of questioning is important. 

It tells us that people are pretty ignorant 

about American Indians. 

Elsewhere, her mother said that she (the mother) lived in a tipi in Montana for awhile, but wasn't living in it when Rachel was born. In an article at the Spokesman Review, her mother said they have "faint traces" of Native heritage. When she lived in that tipi, was she (like her daughter) performing an identity?

As I noted above, this post is less about Dolezal and more about what people believe about American Indians. As many have said, Dolezal is likely mentally ill. That may excuse what she did regarding claims to a Black identity.

The lack of questioning of that born-in-a-tipi story, however, points to the need for children's books and media that accurately portray our lives in the past and the present so that people don't put forth stories like the one Dolezar did, and so that that those who hear that kind of thing question such stories.

Dolezal's story about living in a tipi is plausible but not probable. The power of stereotyping is in her story, and in those who accepted it, too. That is not ok. Look at the images of Native people you are giving to children in your home, in your school, and in your library. Do some weeding. Make some better choices. Contribute to a more educated citizenry.

*Native media is addressing the story. My use of "nobody" is specific to non-Native media. Some Native stories on it include:

Fake Black Folks, Fake Indians, and Allies, by Gyasi Ross of Indian Country Today

Rachel Dolezal, Blackface, and Pretendians, by Ruth Hopkins of Last Real Indians 

Imposters bring harm to Native people, by Doug George-Kanentiio at indianz.com (added June 18, 2015)




Update: June 14th, 2015 at 1:50 PM

People in children's literature with questionable claims to Native identity include John Smelcer, Paul Goble, Jamake Highwater, and "Forrest" Carter.


Update: June 15th, 2015 at 8:00 AM

In her comment, K.T. Horning notes that Jamake Highwater's fraudulent claim to Native identity was exposed by Akwesasne Notes. I've had Highwater on a list of "future blog posts" for some time and ought to prioritize it. For now, if you're interested in knowing more about him, see Kathryn W. Shanley's article, "The Indians America Loves to Love and Read." Published in American Indian Quarterly, Volume 21, No. 4, in Autumn of 1997, she excerpts the Hank Adams article in Akwesasne Notes in 1984, and one by Jack Anderson in The Washington Post. 


Update: June 18, 2015 at 6:30 AM

In a television interview at Today, Dolezal said she was not born in a teepee,but followed those words with "that I know of." She's casting all manner of disclaimers that aren't disclaimers, leaving a lot of wiggle room for... what?

Meeting of the Minds at 2015 Native Early Childhood Symposium

For the last two days I've been in Albuquerque at the Sacred Little Ones 2015 Native Early Childhood Symposium. There have been so many high points, exciting and inspiring moments, but one is especially joyous.

I did a panel yesterday. At today's lunch, a woman waved me over. I saw her nametag, and felt such a joy! The woman is Martha Stackhouse!

Years ago I read her review of Julie of the Wolves. Because she's Alaska Native, her review meant a great deal to me. Meeting others who do critical analysis of the Native content of children's books means so much to me. So. This photo of me and Martha, and a link to her review of Julie of the Wolves are my first blog post from the Sacred Little Ones 2015 Native Early Childhood Symposium.

A Missed Opportunity in Cynthia DeFelice's FORT

The L.A. Times  released their Summer Reading Guide earlier today. I glanced at the Kids list. I'm thrilled to see Engle's Enchanted Air on it, and Older's Shadowshaper, too. I found much to love in both of those books.

I noticed Fort by Cynthia DeFelice on the list, too. Fort? That's one of the story lines that often trades on stereotypes of American Indians. Does DeFelice do that? I don't know. I haven't read her book. From the synopsis, it doesn't sound like it has anything to do with Native peoples:

In this boys-will-be-boys summer story about friendship and revenge, eleven-year-old Wyatt and his friend Augie aren't looking for a fight. They're having the best summer of their lives hanging out in the fort they built in the woods, fishing and hunting, cooking over a campfire, and sleeping out. But when two older boys mess with the fort--and with another kid who can't fight back--the friends are forced to launch Operation Doom, with unexpected results for all concerned, in this novel about two funny and very real young heroes.

Curious, though, I ran the "look inside" search on Amazon, using "Indian" and found this on page 74:

The set up for that passage is this: the boys are hunting squirrels. They have to be very still. Flies land on one of the boys and he wants to swat at the one that lands on his nose. That's when he thinks about that movie. In the next paragraph, he sees that ants are crawling on him. The third paragraph starts out "It seemed like a long time went by." Finally a squirrel comes by and the story shifts to hunting.

Did that passage about Indians and ants need to be in the story? What does it add? When I read "a movie" in that excerpt above, I started looking for such a movie. I found lots of references to an episode in Sons of Anarchy when the "Wahewa" Indians bury a man up to his neck and let ants crawl all over him. I'm sure there's similar scenes in old western flicks.

But regardless of what movie that scene is in, what does it add to this story?

If I was editing the manuscript, I think I'd have suggested that the author cut that paragraph and the next one. She could go from being still (paragraph before that one with the Indian movie reference) to the one that started out "It seemed like a long time went by."

I titled this post "a missed opportunity" because another option to address that excerpt is that the author could have inserted stupid so that the excerpt reads "I sat as quietly as I could, remembering a stupid movie I saw..." or another sentence at the end, such as "That was a stupid movie. When are movie makers going to stop making movies like that?!"

Lest you be tempted to say "it is one line" -- please think about all the "one lines" about Indians there are in children's books, in movies, in songs, in grocery store items, in video games, on athletic team gear... It adds up! Those one lines introduce inaccurate information and reinforce inaccurate information, too.

Fort, published in 2015 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is not recommended.

An Inclusive Summer Reading 2015 List for Kids and Young Adults

Early in 2015, Edith Campbell invited a handful of colleagues who share a passion for children, literacy, and diversity to work with her on a Summer Reading list. She invited us to suggest titles we had read and wanted to recommend. As conversations took place, the focus of the list became clear.

Books we recommend are ones written or illustrated by Native Americans or writers/illustrators of color. We want readers to become familiar with the names on the list and their creative work. As you'll see, not all the books are stories about Native Americans or People of Color, and some are ones in which characters are LGBTQIA or disabled.

Photo by Edith Campbell

As you look over the list, you'll see it is divided into three categories: picture books, middle grade, and young adult. Though we didn't compile the titles using a checklist, we ended up with a list that includes contemporary and historical fiction. There's speculative fiction and nonfiction as well. Some are new, and some are older. The list includes a graphic novel, too. Some titles are from major publishers, some are from small publishers, and some are self-published. And, some are available as audiobooks or e-books.

The Native writers and illustrators we included on the list are Wesley Ballinger, Eric Gansworth, Cheryl Minnema, Cynthia Leitich Smith, and Tim Tingle.

We are Edith Campbell, Sarah Park Dahlen, Sujei Lugo, Lyn Miller-Lachmann, Debbie Reese, and Ebony Elizabeth Thomas. We aren't an organization. We are six people who read and talk about books with each other and on social media.

We are sharing the list as widely as possible across media platforms to reach as many people as possible. We hope you'll order these books if you don't already have them, and, we hope you'll feature them in your summer programming and year-round, too.

On Facebook:

We're the People: Summer Reading 2015

At Edith Campbell's blog, Crazy QuiltEdi

We're the People: Summer Reading 2015

At Nathalie Mvondo's blog: Multiculturalism Rocks

We're the People: Summer Reading 2015

At Lyn-Miller Lachmann's blog: 

We're the People: Summer Reading 2015

At Debbie Reese's Tumblr:

An Inclusive Summer Reading List for Kids/Young Adults!

On Nathalie Mvondo's account at Pinterest, we divided the books into three lists:

We're the People: Picture Books, Chapter Books, Early Readers

We're the People: Summer Reading List 2015, Middle Grade

We're the People: Summer Reading List 2015, Young Adult

You can download a pdf and take it with you to the store or library. If the book you want isn't on the shelf, ask for it! Your library will get a copy, and the bookstore will order it! Asking creates ripples! We have two pdfs:

• The annotated list is 16 pages long.
• The list of titles (without annotations) is 6 pages long.

In whatever way you prefer, we hope you read and share the list with family, friends, and at your local library, too! Meanwhile, we'll be reading and thinking about our 2016 list. 

Last road trip I took, I listened to the audiobook of Gansworth's If I Ever Get Out of Here. Hearing Gansworth read it, different parts of the story jumped out at me. I was surprised to find myself tearing up at some parts. As I head out later this week on a road trip, I'll finish listening to X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon. It will probably end up on the 2016 list we put together. 

Indian-as-spirit in SMEK FOR PRESIDENT by Adam Rex

Earlier this year, I did an analysis of the Native content in Adam Rex's The True Meaning of Smekday. I found the ways that Rex used Native characters and history to be troubling. Some see his parallels to colonization of Natives peoples as having great merit, but the story he tells has a happy ending. The colonizers (aliens called Gorgs from another solar system) do not succeed in their occupation of Earth. They are driven away.

Some people also think Rex cleverly addressed stereotypes in the way that he developed "the Chief" in that story, but I disagree, especially given many things he raised and did not address, like the drunken Indian stereotype.

And some people think that we can overlook all the problems with Native content because there are so few books with biracial protagonists. I disagree with that, too. Why throw one marginalized group under the bus for the sake of another?! That seems twisted and perverse to me.

One of the what-not-to-do cautions in the creation of characters of marginalized populations is "do not kill that character." In The True Meaning of Smekday, Rex killed "the Chief."

In Smek for President, Rex commits another what-not-to-do: use a Native character as a spiritual guide. That character? "The Chief." He died in the first book.

Smek for President opens with a series of cartoon panels that tell us what happened in The True Meaning of Smekday. Amongst the panels are these two. In the first one, we're reminded about "this guy everyone called Chief Shouting Bear."

Back in The True Meaning of Smekday, we learned that his name is actually Frank, but Tip (the protagonist in both books) just calls him "the Chief." She likes him--there's no doubt about that--but persists in using the dehumanizing "the Chief" throughout the book.

In the first book, Tip had a run-in with a Gorg. That run-in is depicted in the next panel in Smek for President:

See "the Chief" in the top panel, approaching that Gorg and Tip? He told that Gorg to leave Tip alone. As you see, the Gorg punched "the Chief" (accident is not the right word for what happened!), knocking him out. Tip and J.Lo (he's a Boov) took him to an apartment to get help. That's when Vicky (another character) asks if he'd been drinking.

Towards the end of The True Meaning of Smekday, "the Chief" dies.

But he appears again and again in Smek for President... 

On page 25, Tip and J.Lo are in their spaceship, flying to New Boovworld and looking out the window at Saturn. Tip thinks back to the time that "the Chief" took her and J.Lo to look at Saturn through a telescope. Here's that part (p. 25-26):

"My people called it Seetin," said the Chief. "Until the white man stole it from us and renamed it."

I turned away from the eyepiece and frowned at the Chief. "Until... what? How can that be true?"

The Chief was smirking. "It isn't. I'm just messing with you."

And now, as we skimmed over the planet's icy rings, I said to J.Lo, "I wish the Chief could have seen this."

He'd died over a year ago, at the age of ninety-four--just a few months after the Boov had left Earth.

That passage is another good example of the author taking one step forward and then two steps backward. By that, I mean that it is good to bring up the idea that Native lands were stolen and renamed, but the "just messing with you" (the humor) kind of nullifies the idea being raised at all. It may even cause readers to wonder what part of "the Chief's" remarks is not true. That his people had a different name for Saturn? That white people didn't really steal Indians?

Tip and J.Lo land their spaceship on New Boovworld. On page 74, Tip is inside an office. She hides by climbing into a chute that drops her in a garbage pit:

Back when the Chief was alive, he and I had all kinds of long talks. Arguments, sometimes. So I don't want you to think I'm schizophrenic or anything, but I occasionally imagine the Chief and I are having one of those talks when I need a little company. And I needed a little company.

"Hey, Stupidlegs," said the Chief.

"Hey, Chief," I answered, smiling. And I opened my eyes. He was to my left, standing lightly on the surface of the trash.

I know people will think it is nice that Tip would imagine an Indian person as the one she'd turn to when she's in need of company, but it is like that far too often!

People love Indian mascots. Indians were so brave, so courageous! Never mind that the mascot itself is a stereotype---we real Native people are told we should feel honored by mascots!

People love Indian spirits, too. Remember "Ghost Hawk" -- the character Susan Cooper created? He started out as Little Hawk but gets killed part way through the story. He stays in the story, however, as a ghost or spirit that teaches the white protagonist all kinds of things.

People love Indians that remind them of days long past, when the land was pristine. Remember Brother Eagle Sister Sky by Susan Jeffers? A white family laments deforestation and plants trees. Throughout the book, there are ghost-like Indians here and there.

People love scary Indian ghosts, too. All those stories where a house is built on an old Indian burial ground! Those angry Indian spirits do all kinds of bad things. Earlier this year I read a Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew story where Nancy was sure an angry Indian spirit was up to no good. And how about that angry Indian in the Thanksgiving episode of Buffy the Vampire Killer?

My point is that this trope is tiresome. If you see a review that notes this problematic aspect of Smek for President, do let me know!

AICL's Best Books of 2015

In December of 2014, I made a list of books that I'd recommended in 2014. It was a list of books that were published in that year.

This year I'm starting the Best Books of 2015 list today (May 6) and will update it as the year progresses. If you're looking over the list and want me to consider a book, do let me know!

BOOKS BY NATIVE WRITERS

Comics and Graphic Novels:

• Three Feathers written by Richard Van Camp, illustrated by Krystal Mateus, published by High Water Press, Inc.
• Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection, edited by Michael Sheyahshe, published by Alternative History Comics
• Super Indian, Volume II, written and illustrated by Arigon Starr, published by Wacky Productions, Unlimited.
• The Blue Raven written by Richard Van Camp, illustrated by Steven Keewatin Sanderson, published by Pearson.
• A Blanket of Butterflies written by Richard Van Camp, illustrated by Scott B. Henderson, published by Highwater Press.

Board Books:

• Celebrate My Hopi Corn and Celebrate My Hopi Toys, by Anita Poleahla, illustrated by Emmet Navakuku, published by Salina Press. 

Picture Books:

• Kamik's First Sled by Matilda Sulurayok, illustrated by Qin Leng, published by Inhabit Media.
• Hiawatha and the Peacemaker by Robbie Robertson, illustrated by David Shannon, published by Abrams.
• The Apple Tree by Sandy Tharpe-Thee, illustrated by Marlena Campbell Hodson, published by Road Runner Press.

For Middle Grades:

• In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse written by Joseph Marshall III, illustrated by Jim Yellowhawk, published by Amulet (imprint of Abrams). 

For High School:

• Feral Pride written by Cynthia Leitich Smith, published by Candlewick.
• Urban Tribes edited by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale, published by Annick Press. 
• Whistle by Richard Van Camp, published by Pearson. 

NON-NATIVE WRITERS

Comics and Graphic Novels:

Picture Books:

For Middle Grades:

For High School:

• Shadowshaper written by Daniel Jose Older, published in 2015 by Arthur A. Levine (imprint of Scholastic). 

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF CRAZY HORSE by Joseph Marshall III

Joseph Marshall III is an enrolled member of the Sicangu Lakota (Rosebud Sioux) tribe. Born and raised on the Rosebud Sioux reservation, he is the author of several books about Lakota people. Last year, I read his The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History. I highly recommend it. In 2011, Marshall's book was selected for the One Book South Dakota project. Over 2400 Native high school students in South Dakota were given a copy of it. How cool is that? (Answer: very cool, indeed!)

Yesterday, I finished his In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse. First thing I'll say? Get it. Order it now. It won't hit the bookstores till later this year, but pre-order it for your own kids and your library. Like The Journey of Crazy Horse, it provides insights and stories that you don't get from academic historians.

To my knowledge, there is nothing like it for kids. Some of the reasons I'm keen on it?

First, it is set in the present day on the Rosebud Sioux reservation. Regular readers of AICL know that I think it is vitally important that kids read books about Native people, set in the present day. Such books provide Native kids with characters that reflect our existence as people of the present day, and they help non-Native kids know that--contrary to what they may think--we weren't "all killed off" by each other, by White people, or by disease, either.

Second, the protagonist, Jimmy McClean, is an eleven-year old Lakota boy with blue eyes and light brown hair. Blue eyes? Light brown hair?! Yes. His dad's dad was White. Those blue eyes and light brown hair mean he gets teased by Lakota kids and White ones, too.

Third, it is a road trip book! I love road trips. Don't you? In this one, his grandfather (his mom's dad) takes him, more or less, in the footsteps of Crazy Horse. Along the way, he learns a lot about Crazy Horse, who--like Jimmy--had light brown hair. When his grandfather is in storytelling mode, giving him information about Crazy Horse, the text is in italics.

Fourth, Jimmy's mom is a Head Start teacher! That is way cool. My little brother and my little sister went to Head Start! When I was in high school, I'd cut school and volunteer at the Head Start whenever I could. But you know what? I can't think of a single book I've read in which one of the characters is a head start teacher, but for goodness sake! Head Start is a big deal! It is reality for millions of people. We should have books with moms or dads who work at Head Start!

Fifth, Jimmy's grandfather imparts a lot of historical information as they drive. At one point, Grandpa Nyles asks him if he's heard of the Oregon Trail. Jimmy says yes, and his grandpa says (p. 29):

"Before it was called the Oregon Trail, it was known by the Lakota and other tribes as Shell River Road. And before that, it was a trail used by animals, like buffalo. It's an old, old trail." 

I love that information! It tells readers that Native peoples were here first, and we had names for this and that place.

Sixth, they visit a monument. His grandpa tells him that the Lakota people call it the Battle of the Hundred in the Hands, and that others call it the Fetterman Battle or the Fetterman Massacre. They read the inscription on the monument. See the last line? It reads "There were no survivors." That is not true, his grandpa tells him. Hundreds of Lakota and Northern Cheyenne survived that battle. It is a valuable lesson, for all of us, about perspective, words, who puts them on monuments, why those particular ones are chosen, etc.

Last reason I'll share for now is that Marshall doesn't soft pedal wartime atrocities. Through his grandfather, Jimmy learns about mutilations done by soldiers, and by Lakota people, too. It isn't done in a gratuitous way. It is honest and straightforward, and, his grandfather says "it's a bad thing no matter who does it."

The history learned by reading In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse and the growth Jimmy experiences as he spends time on that road trip with his grandfather make it invaluable.

In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse, with illustrations by Jim Yellowhawk, is coming out in November from Amulet Books (an imprint of Abrams). Pitched at elementary/middle grade readers, I highly recommend it.

Richard Van Camp's THE BLUE RAVEN

New this year (2015) is Richard Van Camp's graphic novel, The Blue Raven. Illustrated by Steven Keewatin Sanderson, the story is about a stolen bicycle, and, healing. Here's the cover:

The bike, named Blue Raven, belongs to a kid named Benji. He comes out of the library (how cool is that?) and his bike is gone (not cool!). Trevor, the older brother of a kid in his class, sees Benji and offers to help him find the bike.

This isn't just any bike (no bike is, really), but this one? Benji's dad gave it to him when he moved out of their house.

When Benji was born, his dad called him Tatso because his eyes were the same blue color as a baby raven's eyes. Tatso is a Tlicho word. It means Blue Raven.  And--it is the name his dad called the bike, too.

As you might imagine, it is very special to Benji.


We learn all that--and more--as Benji and Trevor drive around on Trevor's four-wheeler, looking for the bike. Trevor is Metis, but wasn't raised with Native traditions in the same way that Benji was. Indeed, there is a moment when Trevor mocks Benji. Confident in what he knows and bolstered by memories of time with members of the community, Benji counters Trevor, who is taken aback and a bit snarky. By the end of this short graphic novel, though, Trevor is with Benji at a gathering where Trevor is invited to dance and the two have agreed to keep looking for the Blue Raven.

Steven Keewatin Sanderson's illustrations are terrific! From anger over his bike being stolen, to the tears Benji sheds in the flashback parts of the story, to the community scenes at the drum dance, they are a perfect match for Van Camp's story. Keep an eye out for his work!

The Blue Raven, published in 2015 by Pearson, is part of its Well Aware series and sold as a package. However, it can be purchased directly from Richard Van Camp at his site. I highly recommend it.

HUNTERS OF CHAOS by Crystal Velasquez

Anytime someone writes a book--yes, even a work of fiction--that gets basic facts about Native people wrong, it is going to get a 'not recommended' from me.

It doesn't matter, to me, how well-written the story might be and it doesn't matter if the book itself has a protagonist or a cast of characters that are from a marginalized group or groups. Nobody in a marginalized group should be expected to endure the misrepresentation of their own people for the sake of another group. And, all readers who walk away with this misrepresentation as "knowledge" are not well served, either.

So, let's take a look at Hunters of Chaos. The synopsis, from Simon and Schuster:

Four girls at a southwestern boarding school discover they have amazing feline powers and must unite to stop an ancient evil in this riveting adventure.

Ana’s average, suburban life is turned upside down when she’s offered a place at the exclusive boarding school in New Mexico that both of her late parents attended. As she struggles to navigate the wealthy cliques of her new school, mysterious things begin to occur: sudden power failures, terrible storms, and even an earthquake!

Ana soon learns that she and three other girls—with Chinese, Navajo, and Egyptian heritages—harbor connections to priceless objects in the school’s museum, and the museum’s curator, Ms.Benitez, is adamant that the girls understand their ancestry. 

It turns out that the school sits on top of a mysterious temple, the ancient meeting place of the dangerous Brotherhood of Chaos. And when one of the priceless museum objects is shattered, the girls find out exactly why their heritage is so important: they have the power to turn into wild cats! Now in their powerful forms of jaguar, tiger, puma, and lion they must work together to fight the chaos spirits unleashed in the ensuing battle…and uncover the terrifying plans of those who would reconvene the Brotherhood of Chaos.

Intriguing? Yes. But... Soon after Ana arrives at the school, there's an earthquake that exposes the mysterious temple. Skipping ahead (for the moment), we learn that the school is (p. 110):

"...yards away from a thriving Native American community, descendants of the Anasazi people..."

For now, I am focusing on the word "Anasazi." For a very long time, that Navajo word was used to describe the people who lived in the cliff houses in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah. The word is no longer in use. Today, "Ancestral Pueblo People" is the phrase people use, because it is the right one to use.

Mesa Verde, Bandelier, Chaco Canyon and others are part of the National Park Service. If you click on those links, you'll see they use "ancestral Pueblo/Pueblo People" rather than "Anasazi."

For a long time, literature associated with those sites said that the "Anasazi" people who lived there had vanished. They didn't. Like any people, anywhere in the world, they moved to other locations when conditions changed. In recognition of that fact, the National Park Service and other government sites stopped using Anasazi and started using Ancestral Pueblo People instead. Another good example is the Bureau of Land Management's page, Who were the Ancestral Pueblo People (Anasazi?).

The massive amounts of literature that used "Anasazi" is probably why Velasquez used it in her book. I wish she had actually looked up the sites I linked to... she'd have avoided the problems in Hunters of Chaos. 

In Hunters of Chaos, Doli is Navajo. Back on page 53 (after they've learned about the temple), Lin (she's the Chinese character) and Doli have an argument. Lin has an expensive purse. Doli makes a sarcastic remark about it, and Lin tells her she's just jealous because she's poor and therefore doesn't belong at the school. Doli says (p. 53):

"I don't belong here?" [...] "You must have been asleep during assembly today. That temple back there means I'm the only one who belongs here."

"Oh, give me a break," Lin said, then sucked her teeth and flicked her hand dismissively. "I was wide awake during Dr. Hottie's speech, and he said the temple was Anasazi, not Navajo." 

Doli, completely unfazed, sighed as if she were tired of explaining the obvious. "The Anasazi were an ancient people who lived on this land. In other words, they were my ancestors. Anasazi literally means 'ancient ones' in Navajo."

So. Doli is Navajo. Some people say Anasazi means "ancient ones" and some say it means "enemy people." Whether it meant ancient ones or enemy people, the key thing is that it definitely did not refer to Navajo people. Interestingly, there is a place in the book where we read that Anasazi means ancient pueblo peoples. At that point in the book, the kids have organized an exhibit to show people what the school's museum has--including artifacts from that temple.

Among the people who come to the exhibit is a family from Doli's reservation (the community that thrives a few yards away from the school). A woman speaks to Doli in Navajo. Ana asks her what the woman said. Here's from page 129:

"She said she was glad she could come. They heard about the temple and are excited about it. She didn't think that the ancient Pueblo peoples were active here, so they are very interested in seeing what was found."

See that "ancient Pueblo peoples"? Does the woman think it is her Navajo ancestors?

The confusion between Navajo and Pueblo is a big deal. We're talking about two distinct nations of people.

There are other problems. On page 64, the anthropologist (Dr. Logan) says that Ancient Egyptians, the Ashanti people of West Africa, and the Anasazi worshipped cats. That's the first I ever heard of that said about Pueblo people!

And when Doli starts talking about shape shifting, she doesn't sound like she really grew up there (p. 158):

"Navajo folklore is full of stories about shape-shifters, but I'm not even sure the people on the reservation would believe me."

When the girls first shape shift, Doli says (p. 169):

"I'm glad it happened that way, and not how the Navajo legends say people usually become shape-shifters." [...] "They perform all kinds of evil rites to get the power. I'm talking witchcraft and murder."

When they try to shift later on purpose, they chant Navajo words that Doli taught them. And on page 240, Doli says a few words in Navajo that, she tells us, is a saying amongst her people that means "When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, strike first." Is that a Navajo saying? I see it attributed to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but I also find it on a bunch of "Indian proverbs" page, with it being attributed to Navajos. I'll keep digging on that saying. Maybe it IS a Navajo one.

Velasquez is working on a sequel to this book. I hope this confusion between two nations does not continue. Published in 2015 by Simon and Schuster, I cannot recommend Hunters of Chaos. 

emily m. danforth's THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST

emily m. danforth's The Miseducation of Cameron Post made quite a splash when it was published in 2012. Published by Balzar + Bray (an imprint of HarperCollins), it won the 2012 Montana Book Award, was a finalist for the William C. Morris Young Adult Debut Award, and was named a winner in the young adult category of the 2013 Lamba Literary Awards. Here's the synopsis:

Set in rural Montana in the early 1990s, emily m. danforth’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a powerful and widely acclaimed YA coming-of-age novel in the tradition of the classic Annie on My Mind. Cameron Post feels a mix of guilt and relief when her parents die in a car accident. Their deaths mean they will never learn the truth she eventually comes to—that she's gay. Orphaned, Cameron comes to live with her old-fashioned grandmother and ultraconservative aunt Ruth. There she falls in love with her best friend, a beautiful cowgirl. When she’s eventually outed, her aunt sends her to God’s Promise, a religious conversion camp that is supposed to “cure” her homosexuality. At the camp, Cameron comes face to face with the cost of denying her true identity.

I know about Adam Red Eagle, one of the characters in it, because someone wrote to tell me about him. I've read a lot of reviews of the book--professional and not--and am not finding reference to Adam. At all. Does he not matter? Or did he not stand out? If you read The Miseducation of Cameron Post, do you remember Adam?

As the synopsis says, Cameron is sent to a religious conversion camp to "cure" her homosexuality. That's where she meets Adam. This all takes pace in Part III: Gods Promise: 1992-1993. When Cameron gets to Promise, she is greeted by Jane, one of the students who she'll become friends with. Soon, a group of students return from an outing to the nearby lake. As they get out of the van, they say something to Cameron, to welcome her (p. 271):

Adam said he’d heard that I was a runner, and that he ran in the mornings and had seen tons of elk and deer and even a moose once or twice.

There's brief hugs, some pleasantries, and then (p. 272):

One final embrace from Adam shrouded me briefly in a sweet, sticky smell that I struggled for a moment to identify, but only because of my surroundings. In the embrace’s release I caught the scent again. Unmistakable. Marijuana.

Later, Cameron asks Jane if all the kids were high, and learns that Jane is the source of the pot. Jane, Adam, and Cameron will soon start hanging out together during their free time.

Part of their counseling (which they are supposed to call support sessions) includes filling out a worksheet, called an iceberg. Each student has one. This is what Adam wrote on his (p. 294):

Dad’s extreme modesty and lack of physical affection caused me to look for physical affection from other men in sinful ways. Too close with mom— wrong gender modeling. Yanktonais’ beliefs (winkte) conflict with Bible. Broken home.

If I understand the iceberg activity, this is the student's personal writing, for himself, not others. If I was Adam, I'd be more likely to say "Our ..." rather than "Yanktonais..." If Adam is writing it for the counselor's eyes, it might be ok as-is, but use of "Yanktonais" struck me as odd. I asked a Native colleague who works at the Oglala Lakota College and learned that the Yanktonais are Dakota and that, in conversation, they'll generally say where they're from rather than say "Yanktonai." That is in conversation, however, and perhaps Adam wrote Yanktonais because he was writing for an outsider (the counselor, who is not Native). My hunch? The decision to use Yanktonais, and the information shared next about the Canoe Peddler band, was based on information from the Fort Peck website.

Right after that, we learn more about Adam (p. 294-295):

His father, who had only recently converted to Christianity “for political reasons,” Adam said, was the one who’d sent him to Promise. His mother opposed the whole thing, but they were divorced, and she lived in North Dakota, and his dad had custody and that was that. His father was from the Canoe Peddler band of the Assiniboine, a voting member in the consolidated Fort Peck Tribal Council, and also a much-respected Wolf Point real estate developer with mayoral ambitions, ambitions that he felt were threatened by having a fairy for a son.

From that, we learn that his dad is Assiniboine. Based on Adam's use of Yanktonais (on his iceberg), we can infer that his mom is Yanktonais. I like that we learn his dad is political. Too many depictions of Native people put us on a pedestal that idealizes who we are, making us seem like we can do no wrong. We're human beings, which means we can have the same kinds of opportunistic people amongst us as anyone does.

And, we are dealing with centuries of persecution from colonizers whose sought to kill us, and kill off our Indigenous ways of being. That persecution includes those who did not, and do not, fit within the male/female gender binary. In The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Adam is winkte. He tells us more about that later, when he and Jane and Cameron are talking about being at Promise and what being there does to their sense of self. Adam says (p. 310):

“I’m the ghost of my former gay self."

A stickler for how they use words, Jane replies (p. 310):

“I thought you were never a ‘gay self.’”

Adam replies (p. 310):

“You and word choice,” he said. “I wasn’t, technically. I’m still not. I was just using the most handy term available to make a point.”

Cameron replies, in the voice of Lydia (one of the counselors), and the conversation continues (p. 310-311):

I did my best Lydia. “You were promoting the gay image through the use of sarcastic comments and humor,” I said. “I’m probably going to have to report you.”

Then, (p. 311):

“Not the gay image,” Adam said, with more seriousness. “No gay image here. I’m winkte.” I’d seen that on his iceberg and had wanted to ask him about it. “What is that?” “Two-souls person,” he said, not looking at me, concentrating, instead, on the long pine needles he was braiding. “It’s a Lakota word— well, the shorter version of one. Winyanktehca. But it doesn’t mean gay. It’s something different.”

That passage is where things really start to get messy. The last two lines are fine. The "two souls" part? I do not recall that phrase in any of the reading I've done. Generally, the phrase "two spirit" is used. I started digging in. I searched the web, and books, and research studies. Invariably, "two souls" took me to a paper by Marjorie Anne Napewastewin Schutzer, delivered in 1994 at the European Network of Professionals in Transsexualism.

Several things in that paper, and about that paper, made me pause. None of the routes to that paper are from Native people. People within the Native LGBTQ community, and those who do research in this area, do not cite Schutzer.

Though Schutzer identifies as Lakota, the writing sounds very much like someone who speaks of their identity, not through a life lived within a Native community, but through a search done later in life, driven by a romantic disposition of what it means to be Native. The overall tone is one that fits non-Native mainstream expectations of how a Native person would speak, but it doesn't ring true.

The degree to which Schutzer's talk is circulating is worrisome. Adam says winkte is a shorter version of a longer Lakota word, "winyanktehca." Schutzer wrote that winkte is "an old Lakota word" that has been "contracted" to winkte. I found that phrasing in several non-Native sources. It is in the Study Guide for Essentials of Cultural Anthropology, in Cynthia L. Winfield's Gender Identity: The Ultimate Teen Guide, and it is listed as the source for the definition at Wikipedia.

Schutzer also wrote that winkte's are shamans and sacred. That, too, is in The Miseducation of Cameron Post, voiced through Jane, and rebutted by Adam (p. 311):

“It’s a big deal,” Jane said. “Adam’s too modest. He doesn’t want to tell you that he’s sacred and mysterious.” 

“Don’t fucking do that,” Adam said, throwing some of the nonbraided needles from his pile at her. “I don’t want to be your sacred and mysterious Injun.”

His last line is great (don't want to be your sacred and mysterious Injun), but, I'm not sure if it works, given the next exchange (p. 311):

“Well, you already are,” Jane said. “Put it in your peace pipe and smoke it.” 

“That’s outrageously offensive,” he said, but then he smiled. “It’s the Sacred Calf Pipe, anyway.”

He tells her it is not a "peace pipe" but "the Sacred Calf Pipe" which is actually quite sacred, and I'm not sure that a Dakota kid, raised with the knowledge he seems to have, would speak of it in a conversation like this one. Here's more (p. 311-312):

“So you were like named this or something?” I asked. “How do you say it again?” 

“Wink-tee,” Adam said. “It was seen in a vision on the day of my birth.” He paused. “If you believe my mother, that is. If you believe my father, then my mother concocted this nonsense as an excuse for my faggy nature, and I need to just man up already.”

“Yeah, I’ll just go with your dad’s version,” I said. “Much simpler.” 

“I told you we’d like her,” Jane said. 

Adam hadn’t laughed, though. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “My dad’s version is easier to explain to every single person in the world who doesn’t know Lakota beliefs. I’m not gay. I’m not even a tranny. I’m like pre-gender, or almost like a third gender that’s male and female combined.”

What exactly does Cameron's question (you were named this) mean? Given Adam's answer (it was seen in a vision), I think she is asking how he came to be a winkte, as if it is something one is appointed to, by someone. In this case, someone had a vision and saw that the newborn baby was a winkte. What Adam says reminds me again of Schutzer, who wrote (on that webpage) "I was called through a vision [...] from out of the womb."

Adam and Cameron continue (p. 312):

“That sounds really complicated,” I said. 

Adam snorted. “You think? Winktes are supposed to somehow bridge the divide between genders and be healers and spirit people. We’re not supposed to try to pick the sex our private parts most align with according to some Bible story about Adam and Eve.”

Again, this brings Schutzer's writing to mind. She wrote "I represent a profound healing, a reconciliation of the most fundamental rift that divides us, human from human--gender." Given the contexts in which Schutzer's writing is cited, I think it is not reliable. There may be other sources out there that danforth used to develop the winkte parts of The Miseducation of Cameron Post, but I can't find them. Indeed, writings I do know of are more pragmatic and realistic in how winkte's are discussed. Schutzer cites the popular John Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions, but its co-author is a non-Native man, Richard Erdoes. He's co-author on several books like this, and as Ed Valandra points out in his article about as-told-to biographies, they open with a mystical story about how the Native person had a vision in which Erdoes would appear to him and offer to help him tell his story (I highly recommend Valandra's article: "The As-Told-To Native [Auto]biography: Whose Voice is Speaking" in a well-regarded journal in Native Studies, Wicazo Sa Review. See volume 20, #2, Fall 2005).

Towards the end of The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Jane, Adam, and Cameron have left Promise. They're headed to Quake Lake, where Cameron's mother died. Cameron sees dead trees, standing upright in the lake. She thinks they look like walking sticks left behind by a race of giants. She says (p. 458-459):

“Who was that Lakota giant— the one who was supposed to be like visible to man forever ago, but isn’t now, and lives on a mountain surrounded by water?” 

“Yata,” Adam said. “Why, did you see him?” He pretended to scan the forest around us, feigning anxiousness.

He asks her why she's asking him about this giant, and she gestures to the trees in the lake and how they look like walking sticks for giants. He says (p. 459):

“That actually sort of works,” Adam said. “This could be Yata territory. Yata is way into ceremonies. That’s kind of what you’re doing here, right?”

The three gaze at the lake. Jane says that it is "pretty, but it's" and Cameron says that the trees make it creepy. Adam replies (p. 460):

“It’s more than the trees,” Adam said. “There’s all kinds of powerful energy here. It’s unsettled or something.”

With his reply, I think it is fair to say that Adam he is imbued with a special ability to sense things, which again brings me to Schutzer.

I really wanted to join the chorus of voices that love and recommend The Miseducation of Cameron Post. For teens that identify with Cameron or Jane, danforth's book is important. But Native teens matter, too. Those who identify as winkte (or that identity and its word in their own nation) do not, to my knowledge, have a single character that looks like them in the thousands and thousands of young adult books out there right now. I think we'll get there, but getting there will require writers who create Adams to be very careful in their sources. There are several reliable sources that are a good starting point. They include:

• Directions in Gender Research in American Indian Societies: Two Spirits and Other Categories by Beatrice Medicine, published in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 3(1), in 2002. 
• "Gender" by Joanne Barker, in The World of Indigenous North America, (Routledge, 2014), edited by Robert Warrior.  
• Two-Spirit People, (University of Illinois Press, 1997), edited by Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang. 
• Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature, (University of Arizona Press, 2011), edited by Qwo-Li Driskill, Daniel Heath Justice, Deborah Miranda, and Lisa Tatonetti. 

If you're a writer, please read those items. If you're an editor, ask your writer to read them. And if you're an editor, read them yourself. Right now we don't have a lot of un-doing to do in terms of problematic representations of winktes. This time out? Please. Get it right.

Native American Representation in Children's Literature: Challenging the People of the Past Narrative, by Julie Stivers

Eds Note: Today, AICL is pleased to share a study done by Julie Stivers, a graduate student at UNC-Chapel Hill, School of Library and Information Science. Ms. Stivers shared the poster (below) with me earlier this week. I was reading Ed Valandra's article that day and sent it to her because her study confirms Vine Deloria Jr.'s observations about books published from 1968 to 1975 (Valandra's article is listed below in Additional Resources). Of those four years, Deloria wrote (p. 105-106):

...it seemed as if every book on modern Indians was promptly buried by a book on the "real" Indians of yesteryear. The public overwhelming[ly] turned to Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and The Memories of Chief Red Fox to avoid the accusations made by modern Indians in The Tortured Americans and Custer Died for Your Sins. The Red Fox book alone sold more copies than the two modern books. 

Valandra continued:

In other words, the non-Indian literary world refused to consider Native peoples in a modern context, thus hindering the accurate depiction of contemporary Native issues.

Ms. Stivers studied children's books published since 2013. Her findings tell us that things haven't changed much. What gets published, matters. The writer's you read, and their viewpoints, matter. Please seek out Native writers! Think about their stories and what they choose to share. It matters. 

Thank you, Ms. Stivers, for giving AICL permission to share your excellent work on this project! 

___________________________

Native American Representation in Children's Literature: 

Challenging the "People of the Past" Narrative

by Julie Stivers

Are you a librarian...a teacher...or a parent?  Let’s think for a moment about the books we own that feature Native American main characters.  What are their settings?  In the past?  Modern day?  If the text does not make this clear—if, for example, there are anthropomorphic animals—what are they wearing?  Baseball caps and modern clothes or ‘leather and feathers’?

It was these questions that drove me to research the time settings of books featuring Native Americans for a Children’s Literature class assignment on content analysis.  Of the many problematic stereotypes in youth literature written about Native Americans, I chose to focus on examining the prevalence of the ‘people of the past’ narrative.  At face value, readers and librarians may think this is a harmless problem—which is, of course—what makes it so dangerous.  However, a predilection for featuring only Native American books that are set in the past puts forth a narrative that Native American people themselves are only of the past, allowing their present lives—and their sovereign rights—to be ignored.  This stereotype is damaging to the sense of self of contemporary Native youth.  A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children (Seale & Slapin, 2005) contains “living stories" which shed light on the negative impact stereotypes in literature are having on Native American youth.

This poster displays results from the content analysis of youth fiction books published since 2013 with Native American main characters.  75% of books written by non-Native authors were set before 1900, compared with only 20% written by Native authors.  Increasing the time period granularity makes the results even more striking.  No books by non-Native authors were set after 1950, whereas 75% of books by Native authors were, with 2/3 of books written by Native authors set in present day. 

Which books do we think are being put out by the Big Five publishers?  Overwhelmingly, those set in the past.  So, if we are relying on ‘mainstream’ review sources, ordering platforms, and book fairs, we will get a clearly biased view of Native Americans in our youth literature.  Only by seeking out offerings from independent publishers and learning from sites such as American Indians in Children’s Literature and Oyate can we successfully challenge the ‘people of the past’ narrative by collecting books about—and written by—Native Americans that reflect a wide range of experiences and settings.

Please note that this research makes no claims as to the quality or authenticity of the titles.  The presence of a book in a ‘pre-1900’ category does not preclude it from being an excellent example of literature featuring American Indians, such as How I Became a Ghost by Tim Tingle, praised by both Native reviewers and mainstream critics.  For this sample, however, there was a commonality for all well-reviewed books set in the past—they were all written by American Indian authors.

Additional Resources:

Seale, D. & Slapin, B. (Eds.). (2005).  A broken flute:  The Native experience in books for children.  Berkeley, CA:  Oyate.

Stewart, M.P. (2013).  “Counting Coup” on children’s literature about American Indians:  Louise Erdrich’s historical fiction.  Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 38(2), 215-235.

Valandra, E.C.  (2005).  The As-Told-To Native [Auto]biography:  Whose voice is speaking? Wicazo Sa Review, 29(2), 103-119.

Boccella Hartle, M. & Shebala, M. (2010).  When your hands are tied.  Documentary film.  http://www.whenyourhandsaretied.org/

Children's Books that Mock Native Names Pave the Way for Adam Sandler's Satire

On Thursday (April 23, 2015), Vince Shilling, writing at Indian Country Today, broke a news story that was quickly picked up by social media sites (like Gawker) and then news media, too (like CNN, and in the UK, the Guardian).

Shilling's story is about Native actors walking off the set of Adam Sandler's new movie, The Ridiculous Six, because of the ways the script denigrates Native women and mocks Native culture via the names created for Native characters and in the dialogue: Never Wears Bra (in an earlier version of the script, her name was Sits on Face), Strawberry Tits, Stiff In Pants.

People are outraged. I am, too.

Though not as crude as the ones in the script, I've seen that same sort of thing in children's books. Here's some examples:

In Russell Hoban's Soonchild, a couple is expecting their first child. The man's name is "Sixteen Face John" because he has sixteen different faces, all with their own names. They are described in the first chapter. His first face is his (p. 3):

Hi face, the one he said hello with. Face Two was What? Face Three was Really? Face Four was Well, Well. Face Five was Go On! Face Six was You Don't Mean It. Face Seven was You Mean it? Face Eight was That'll Be The Day. Face Nine was What Day Will That Be? Face Ten was It Can't Be That Bad. Face Eleven was Can It Be That Bad? Face Twelve was I Don't Believe It. Face Thirteen was I Believe It. Face Fourteen was This Is Serious. Face Fifteen was What I'm Seeing Is What It Is. Face Sixteen was What It's Seeing Is What I Am.

He's a shaman from a long line of shamans (p. 6):

His mother was Stay With It and his father was Go Anywhere. His mother's mother was Never Give Up and her father was Try Anything. His father's mother was Do It Now and his father's father was Whatever Works. His mother's grandmother was Where Is It? and his father's grandmother was Don't Miss Anything. His mother's grandfather was Everything Matters and his father's grandfather was Go All The Way. 

And... his wife's name is No Problem. Her mother's name is Take It Easy. Her friend is Way To Go. Soonchild was published in 2012 by Candlewick Press.

In Me Oh Maya, Jon Scieszka makes fun of Mayan names. His much-loved Time Warp Trio travels to the midst of a Mayan ball court where an "evil high priest" named Kakapupahed stands over them. They try not to laugh aloud at his name, which they hear as Cacapoopoohead. Me Oh Maya was published in 2003 by Viking.

None of this is new to children's literature. Some of you may recall titles from your childhood like Indian Two Feet and Little Indian and Little Runner of the Longhouse.  

I find these attempts to come up with Native names troubling and problematic in so many ways. Equally troubling are the ways they are described. Hoban's book, for example, got starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly who noted his use of "slapstick" in tackling "the big questions" about life. Booklist, meanwhile, called it profound and offhandedly glib.

Sandler has, thus far, issued no response to Native people regarding his script and reaction to it. The film Sandler is making is slated to air on Netflix. A spokesperson for Netflix did reply (as reported by Vulture) by saying:

"The movie has ridiculous in the title for a reason: because it is ridiculous. It is a broad satire of Western movies and the stereotypes they popularized, featuring a diverse cast that is not only part of — but in on — the joke."

In other words, they're telling the world that Native people are in on the joke. Rather than listen to Native voices, they defend what they're doing.

Sandler's satire is not "ridiculous" at all! 

It is derogatory and offensive. 

I contend that children's books are part of the problem. Things given to young people matter. Giving them books that poke fun of Native names pave the way for the creation and defense of what we see in Sandler's movie.

I'll be back with an update if Sandler or Netflix issue any statements, but carry this with you as you select--or weed--books in your library: Names matter. Nobody's names ought to be fodder for satire or humor, whether it is by Adam Sandler or Jon Sciezka.