Debbie--have you seen... Josephine Angelini's TRIAL BY FIRE

Update, Jan 5, 2017: -- I read Angelini's book. If I write a review, it will get a not recommended tag. Among the many reasons: inaccuracies. Lily (the main character) tells us there is an Algonquin tribe, and that she's "pretty sure there were no more Algonquin left in her world" (her world is modern day U.S.). Fact: There was not an Algonquin tribe. Another reason: overall, Angelini's book has a new-age stereotypical quality. 

__________

A reader wrote to me about Josephine Angelini's Trial By Fire. Published in 2014 by Square Fish (a Macmillan imprint), it is the first book in her Worldwalker Trilogy. Here's the synopsis (there were some typos in it that I corrected when pasting it):

This world is trying to kill Lily Proctor. Her life-threatening allergies make it increasingly difficult to live a normal life, and after a completely humiliating incident ruins her first (and perhaps only) real party, she's ready to disappear. "Come and be the most powerful person in the world." Suddenly, Lily finds herself in a different Salem. One overrun with horrifying creatures and ruled by powerful women—including Lillian, this world's version of Lily. "It will be terrifying. It was for me." What made Lily weak at home, makes her extraordinary here. It also puts her in terrible danger. Faced with new responsibilities she can barely understand and a love she never expected, Lily is left with one question: How can she be the savior of this world when she is literally her own worst enemy?

Sounds compelling, doesn't it? The first six chapters are available online.

Lily's love interest, I gather, is Rowan who is an "Outlander." The Outlander's are the story's version of Native peoples in a Salem, Massachusetts of the future. Rowan is a healer. There's time travel as Lily goes from present day to that future time. Are there Native people in the present, too? I'm wondering...

If I read and review the book, I'll be back to point to my review.

Debbie--have you seen... WAKE OF VULTURES by Lila Bowen

I get a lot of email, Facebook messages, and tweets from people who wonder if I've read or reviewed a book they came across. I want to keep a record of those requests, and with the start of 2016, will load posts titled with "Debbie, have you seen... _____" If I get the book in question and have time to review it, I'll be back to direct readers to the review.

Today, a reader wrote to me about Lila Bowen's Wake of Vultures. It was published in 2015 by Orbit, which I think is part of Little Brown. The main character, Nettie, is "half-Injun, half-Black." She is fourteen years old, but the book was not reviewed by the children's or YA literature journals. If I get a copy, I may review it, but if you see reviews specific to the depiction of the Nettie or Native people, do let me know!

Kenneth Oppel's THE BOUNDLESS

A few days ago, I began to see Sujei Lugo's tweets about Kenneth Oppel's The Boundless. Intrigued, I got a copy from the library. Published in 2014 by Simon and Schuster, here's the synopsis:

The Boundless, the greatest train ever built, is on its maiden voyage across the country, and first-class passenger Will Everett is about to embark on the adventure of his life!

When Will ends up in possession of the key to a train car containing priceless treasures, he becomes the target of sinister figures from his past.

In order to survive, Will must join a traveling circus, enlisting the aid of Mr. Dorian, the ringmaster and leader of the troupe, and Maren, a girl his age who is an expert escape artist. With villains fast on their heels, can Will and Maren reach Will’s father and save The Boundless before someone winds up dead?

The country that train is crossing is Canada. In chapter one, Will ends up driving the final stake--a gold one--into the tracks, thereby completing the track in Craigellachie, presumably in 1885.

Let's step out of the book and look at a little bit of history.

The final stake connecting the eastern and western portions of the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven into a railroad tie on November 7, 1885, in Craigellachie. Here's a map showing where it is, in British Columbia:

And here's a map from the website of the Canadian Museum of History, showing the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway:

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, all that land belonged to Native Nations.

In the US, the last spike of the Transcontinental Railroad was driven into the track in 1869. Train stories about railroads are popular. I read them with a critical eye, wondering if the author is going to provide readers with any information about what the railroads meant for Native people. They were, in short, a key reason land was taken from Native Nations. It is with that knowledge that I read books about railroads and trains.

The Boundless came out in 2014--the same year that Brian Floca's Locomotive won the Caldecott Medal.

The synopsis (above) for The Boundless doesn't mention anything about Native people, but the story Oppel gives us has a lot of Native content. Let's start with Mr. Dorian. We first meet him at the end of chapter one, when he captures a sasquatch. The year for that chapter is 1885. Chapter two picks up three years later (1888).

The next time we see Mr. Dorian is in chapter three, where, in his role as circus master, he talks to passengers about the train, saying:

Cut from the wilderness, these tracks take us from sea to sea, through landscapes scarcely seen by civilized men.

I was intrigued about Oppel's treatment of sasquatch in chapter one. The sasquatch Mr. Dorian captured becomes part of the circus (though it doesn't do anything in performances) and is on the train three years later. I wasn't keen on seeing that one captured and put in a cage because the sasquatch is in Native stories of tribes in the northwest. And, I didn't like reading "scarcely seen by civilized men" either because it suggests that the peoples of the northwest tribal nations were uncivilized. Reading that line, of course, reminded me of the grueling discussions about "civilized" Indians in The Hired Girl (those discussions took place on Heavy Medal and prompted me to do a stand-alone post, A Native Perspective on The Hired Girl).

Those two concerns jumped to a whole new level when I got to chapter seven and learned that Mr. Dorian is Native. The bad guy, Mr. Brogan, is looking for Will (the protagonist). Brogan thinks Dorian is hiding him and threatens to throw Dorian and the entire circus off the train. Dorian doesn't think Brogan has the authority to do that, and Brogan says (p. 124):

"You'd be surprised. And I don't take my orders from circus folk--especially half-breeds like you."

We're not supposed to like Brogan, so having him use "half breed" is supposed to provide us with a cue that the use of the phrase is not ok. Even so, I cringed when I read it. Such words--even when uttered by despicable characters--sting.

That said, it was hard for me to think of a Native person capturing a sasquatch and keeping it in a cage (he also wants to catch a Wendigo, which is also a problem), and it is hard for me to think that a Native person would say that Native homelands were "scarcely seen by civilized men." Would he think that? Maybe it is a script he uses as a circus ringmaster? A performance designed to stir up the imagination of the (white) audience? If so, Oppel should have given readers a clue about those words, but he didn't.

Either way, portraying Native peoples and our nations as "primitive" or "uncivilized" fits with white supremacy and ideas that we didn't know how to use the land (as Europeans used land), and therefore the land itself could simply be claimed by European nations and Europeans who knew what to do with it (by their definition, of course).

Back to the story...

Mr. Dorian doesn't like being called a "half breed" and calmly replies that he prefers the term Métis. Will overhears their conversation and thinks:

Having grown up in Winnipeg, Will is familiar with the Métis--the offspring of French settlers and Cree Indians--and the insults they endured, especially after their failed uprising.

Is what Will says accurate? Partially, but there's a lot more to it than that. And, is the "failed uprising" about Louis Riel? And... why use "uprising" to refer to that period of Métis activism? What image of comes to mind with the word "uprising"? Is it one like this? This is Riel and men who were, in the late 1860s/early 1870s, part of a provisional government he formed:

Source: http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/events/rielcouncillors.shtml 

Other words in what Will says about Métis are odd, too. Uprising is one, but so is "offspring." Technically, it does mean children, but why not have Will use children, or kids?

Skipping ahead now, to page 145 (chapter 8) where Maren (she's a main character, too) is showing Will around the train car where the circus performers practice. Specifically, they're looking at the trapeze artists (the train is huge):

Both men are lean and muscular. Their heads are bald except for a tuft of long hair at the back, which is gathered into three braids. 

Will asks Maren if they're Mohawk. She says yes, and that they're fearless, that heights mean nothing to them. I don't know about those three braids, but Oppel is definitely using what he knows about Mohawk steelworkers. Fearless, though? Nope.

In chapter nine, Will is headed up to the "colonist" cars which are overcrowded. The person who takes them through the cars tells them that (p. 177):

"These people are fortunate to get passage on the Boundless at all," Drurie says with a sniff. "They're the poorest of the poor, and they've washed up on the shores of our country to claim our land."

They're German, French, and Italian. Mr. Dorian replies to Drurie (he's white):

"My mother's people are Cree Indian. Perhaps it's people like you who have washed up on our shores. A stimulating thought, don't you think?"

Drurie ignores him, but let's pause. Remember what I pointed out about Dorian's use of "civilized" in chapter three? Dorian is expressing a very political point here, but didn't do so earlier. That is an inconsistency in his characterization. Of course, I like the point he makes here. That line gets at current political discussions about immigration.

There's more I could note (like the brownface Sujei Lugo pointed out), but I'll end with a brief discussion of the buffalo hunting scene. It takes place in chapter 12. The train has a shooting car, in which passengers can pay to use a rifle (provided by a steward) to shoot at wildlife they pass. Just at the moment that Will and Maren are in the shooting car, a herd of buffalo moves over a hill and toward the train. Passengers start shooting at them. Will thinks it unsportsmanlike. He's right, of course, but that activity was common on trains during that time. Mr. Dorian says (p. 251):

"This is how you exterminate a people," the ringmaster says bitterly, "You kill all their food."

Then, passengers see Indians riding behind the herd, driving the herd away from the train. Some have rifles and some have bows. The steward tries to get people to leave the car, but they don't want to. One man shouts (p. 252):

"Damn redskins! They're steering them away from us."

Angry, that man then takes aim at one of the Indians on horseback. Dorian grabs the rifle and tells the angry man that the Indians need those buffalo for food and hides. The angry man says he's helping them by shooting the buffalo. Dorian points out that the man was shooting at the Indians, and the man says:

"What's one less Indian?"

He's killed an instant later, by an arrow, and Dorian murmurs "one less white man." The steward manages to get everyone inside, where Will hears a man call out how they "showed those redskins."

Earlier, I talked about a bad-guy using "half-breed." Here, the people using "redskins" are not likable either, and that's supposed to help readers know that what those men are doing is not ok. I think it does that, but as before, such language stings. In this case, it is even worse.

I don't like The Boundless. Like many of Oppel's books, it has sold well. It got starred reviews from the major children's literature journals--stars, in my view, it does not merit. Given its inconsistencies and use of troubling ideas and phrases, I cannot recommend Oppel's The Boundless. 

Revised! Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire's ABRAHAM LINCOLN

On December 1, 2015, Publisher's Weekly ran an article about Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire's Abraham Lincoln, which won the Caldecott Award in 1940. The article states that the book will be reprinted to mark the 75th anniversary. Gross interviews Rea Berg of Beautiful Feet Books. It is her press that is reprinting the book.

I have not seen one of the original printings of the book. Apparently, the art in the book published in 1940 suffered in prints in the 1950s, when printing techniques changed. Berg's reprinting will restore the color and quality of the original.

I often discuss the book when I do workshops and lectures, but haven't written about it here on AICL. In my workshops, these pages are the ones I draw attention to.

First is this enlargement of the upper left part of the endpapers:

Look at the upper left corner, where you see what the d'Aulaire's intended to be a tipi and an Indian man, with one foot raised. Why, I wonder, is he shown that way? And his tipi is more like a toy than a real tipi.

The next image I show is this page:

The book is a life history. It includes that page of Lincoln as a child. The text, "solemn like a little papoose," plays on stereotypes of Native people as being stoic. And I wonder if the d'Aulaire's knew that papoose is not the Native word for baby. It is one peoples' word, but there's hundreds of Native languages and each one has its own word for baby.

Later, the d'Aulaire's tell us about Lincoln fighting Black Hawk. Here's an enlarged image from that page. Relative to the people drawn on other pages, this "Indian" is tiny --- but look at how cartoonish it is drawn!

And here's the text for that part:

[T]he men of New Salem were called to war, for an Indian chief, Black Hawk, had come back to Illinois with his warriors.

and

[T]he people of Illinois [...] went to war to chase the Indians out.

Here's more from that part of the book. At the end of that war is this image:

The text for that page is this:

One day a peaceful old Indian came walking into camp. The soldiers were angry and wanted to kill him, but Abe said, "Anyone who touches him must fight me first." Because Abe was the strongest, they had to obey."

I wonder if that "peaceful old Indian" was modeled on this portrait of Black Hawk?

Some of the content in the 75th anniversary edition is going to be changed. In the Publisher's Weekly story is this:

Berg said they made minor modifications to the original art and text to reflect contemporary views about race politics and to reflect historical accuracy, citing two instances in the book, including one of a Native American cowering behind Lincoln, which they fixed to have him “standing erect.” 

Here's that particular image, again, of the cowering man who will be standing erect in the new edition. What, I wonder, was the thinking behind the decision to change that man from cowering to standing erect? In the original, it fits with the white savior theme. Changing him from cowering to erect doesn't change that theme.

On the other hand, there are many accounts of an old Indian man walking into camp and Lincoln saying to his men that they should not hurt him. The sources don't have the "fight me first" line. The accounts are more specific to how Lincoln was viewed by those men. They didn't really respect him and somehow, his defending the old Indian is part of that account.

When the new book comes out, I'll definitely do some comparisons. Now--if I'd been asked to suggest changes, I'd add a bit about the word, papoose, and I'd revise the text about Black Hawk, too. And, I'd include a page about Lincoln signing the order for the largest mass execution in the US: the hangings of the Dakota 38.





The other changes made are with regard to the depiction of slavery. Here's what the article says about that:

Another is when Lincoln is walking down the streets, with freed slaves bowing down to him. “The original text didn’t mention that he didn’t want them bowing down to him,” said Berg. “The original didn’t say that he actually shook hands with them. So we altered his face and made him shake hands with the former slaves and added in what he actually said in the historical record, which was, ‘Do not kneel to me.’ ”

It is a bit hard to make sense of what Berg is saying, but I think they're replacing the text in the book with text that matches the historical record. Here's the page in question (when I get a better image I'll use it instead):

I'll add a link to this post to the set of links I'm compiling that document changes to children's books and I'll be back with a better image of that page when I get to the library (current image is courtesy of Sarah Hamburg).

Alaya Dawn Johnson's LOVE IS THE DRUG

I read Alaya Dawn Johnson's Love is the Drug in 2014 when it came out. I think Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, or maybe Edith Campbell, told me about it. Elsewhere, I've written about books with a problematic line about Native people or culture, or, what we could call a microaggression.

Johnson's book is not about Native people or culture, but she does have a few lines in it that I want to call attention to--because they are the opposite of a microaggression. Indeed, I find them affirming.

They're about the Washington DC professional football team. You know the one I mean: the Redskins. On page 44, Emily and her dad are talking about the team's losing streak. He tells her it is because of their name, that it gives them bad luck. She's a bit skeptical. She thinks it is more about the players and their abilities. I enjoy their banter. He also makes the point that the team name is offensive, when he asks her if the team could get away with calling themselves the Washington Niggers. Pretty bold, but also quite effective.

Later, there's a part where one of the bad-guy-characters is talking about Thanksgiving--and the football game scheduled for that day. He says (p. 215):

"I hear the Redskins are going to play Dallas in a demonstration game. The good American spirit, cowboys versus Indians. The Indians will lose, of course. Everything is going back to normal." 

I won't spoil the book for you by elaborating on what "normal" is... Here's the synopsis:

From the author of THE SUMMER PRINCE, a novel that's John Grisham's THE PELICAN BRIEF meets Michael Crichton's THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN set at an elite Washington D.C. prep school. Emily Bird was raised not to ask questions. She has perfect hair, the perfect boyfriend, and a perfect Ivy-League future. But a chance meeting with Roosevelt David, a homeland security agent, at a party for Washington DC's elite leads to Bird waking up in a hospital, days later, with no memory of the end of the night. Meanwhile, the world has fallen apart: A deadly flu virus is sweeping the nation, forcing quarantines, curfews, even martial law. And Roosevelt is certain that Bird knows something. Something about the virus--something about her parents' top secret scientific work--something she shouldn't know. The only one Bird can trust is Coffee, a quiet, outsider genius who deals drugs to their classmates and is a firm believer in conspiracy theories. And he believes in Bird. But as Bird and Coffee dig deeper into what really happened that night, Bird finds that she might know more than she remembers. And what she knows could unleash the biggest government scandal in US history.

I enjoyed the story. Published by Scholastic.

"What will they say..." Or, Master Narratives of Smiling Slaves and Smiling Indians

Eds. Note: Please scroll to the bottom of this post to see links to discussions of A Birthday Cake for George Washington. The links are in two sets. The first is to items upon the release of the book. The second set is to items following Scholastic's decision to withdraw the book. 

Back in November or December, I started to hear that people in children's literature were wondering what we (by we, I mean people who objected to the treatment of slavery in A Fine Dessert) would say about the smiling slaves in a book due out this year. That book, A Birthday Cake for George Washington, is out now.

It felt, then and now, too, like the people who think A Fine Dessert is ok were waiting to pounce on us. The line of reasoning is this: if the smiling slaves in A Fine Dessert were not ok, then, the smiling slaves in A Birthday Cake for George can't be ok, either. It seemed--and seems--that a test is being put forth. If we don't slam A Birthday Cake, then, our critiques of A Fine Dessert can be ignored.

That situation is disgusting.

A predominantly white institution filled with predominantly white people with hundreds of years of power to determine what gets published is waiting to pounce on people of color if they don't pounce on other people of color.

I ordered A Birthday Cake for George today. I'll study it. I may--or I may not--write about it.

What I want to focus on right now is power and the investment in that white narrative of the US and its history.

Smiling slaves in picture books that, in some way, depict slavery are a parallel to the smiling Indians in picture books set in colonial periods. Those smiles sell. They tell kids things weren't all that bad for those who lived in slavery or those whose communities were being attacked and decimated by those who wanted their land--in many instances--so they could turn those lands into plantations of... smiling slaves.

People in the US are so determined to ignore the ugly history of the US that they churn out narratives that give kids a rosy picture of US history.

Some of you may recall a post here a few years ago, written by a 5th grade girl named Taylor: "Do you mean all those Thanksgiving worksheets we had to color every year with all those smiling Indians were wrong?"

I took a quick look this morning. It was easy to find smiling Indians in picture books for young children. Here's covers of two recent books:

That expectation that we have to throw the team that did A Cake for George Washington under the bus is (saying again) disgusting. Do Native and POC mess up? Yes, we do. We're human beings. Do we want Native and POC who create children's books to do right by our histories? Of course.

The fact is, we're peoples who've been through hell, and survived. Persisted. Indeed, we've thrived in spite of all that got--and gets--thrown our way time and time again.

In whatever ways we choose to write or speak about A Cake for George Washington, I think we'll be doing so from a space of care for each other, because publishing (and Hollywood, too) aren't all that welcoming of the things we want to give to children. Native and POC are, collectively, at a disadvantage. We face difficult decisions at every turn. Native actors need exposure so they can build profiles that give them power to impact what they do the next time, and what those behind them can do, too. Native writers and POC are in that same position. The stakes are high--no matter what one decides to do. Those stakes aren't necessarily the same for white actors, writers, and illustrators.

One of the most important children's books I've read is Simon Ortiz's The People Shall Continue. It is about working together so that we all continue, as people who care about each other. With that in mind, I think the ways that we respond and write about A Cake for George Washington may disappoint those who are waiting for our responses.

Note (Jan 9, 2016): I've been compiling links to discussions of A Fine Dessert and now, A Birthday Cake for George Washington, here:
https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2015/10/not-recommended-fine-dessert-by-emily.html

Or, you can go directly to them as listed here:

• Jan 4, 2016. "Smiling Slaves in a Post-A Fine Dessert World", by Vicky Smith at Kirkus
• Jan 6, 2016. "What Will They Say" by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature
• Jan 6, 2016. "A proud slice of history." by Andrea Davis Pinkney at On Our Minds (Scholastic blog)
• Jan 8, 2016. "On the Depiction of Slavery in Picture Books" by Nathalie Mvondo at Multiculturalism Rocks
• Jan 13, 2016. "Book Review: A Birthday Cake for George Washington" by Edith Campbell at Crazy QuiltEdi
• Jan 13, 2016. "So Scholastic is publishing..." by @LeslieMac on Twitter
• Jan 14, 2016. "The First Bite: Slicing Through A Birthday Cake to Reveal Layers of Truth" by Ramin Ganeshram (author of book) at CBC Diversity. 
• Jan 14, 2016. "Enslaved Africans of George Washington Depicted as 'Happy and Joyful' by Zellie Imani in The Atlanta Blackstar
• Jan 15, 2016. Scholastic's "Response on a Birthday Cake for George Washington" at the Scholastic blog, On Our Minds.
• Jan 15, 2016. "NOT Recommended: A Birthday Cake for George Washington" by Allyson Criner Brown at Teaching for Change.  
• Jan 15, 2016. Scholastic's "Response on A Birthday Cake for George Washington" at the Scholastic blog, On Our Minds. 

In an unprecedented move, Scholastic released a statement that they are withdrawing the book from distribution. The statement was released on Sunday, January 17. Here's the first paragraph of the statement:

Scholastic is announcing today that we are stopping the distribution of the book entitled A Birthday Cake for George Washington, by Ramin Ganeshram and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton, and will accept all returns. While we have great respect for the integrity and scholarship of the author, illustrator, and editor, we believe that, without more historical background on the evils of slavery than this book for younger children can provide, the book may give a false impression of the reality of the lives of slaves and therefore should be withdrawn.

Below are links to items specific to their decision. I am placing Ebony Elizabeth Thomas's Storify in a larger font because I believe it is the single most important response to #SlaveryWithASmile. Today (Jan 22) I am inserting Freeman Ng's page-by-page synopsis at the top of the set of links for those who wish to begin their reading with more information about the contents of the book.

Page-by-page synopsis with screen captures, of A Birthday Cake for George Washington, by Freeman Ng.

• Jan 17, 2016. "New statement about the picture book 'A Birthday Cake for George Washington'" at the Scholastic blog, On Our Minds. 
• Jan 17, 2016. "Recalled" by Edi Campbell at Crazy QuiltEdi
• Jan 17, 2016. Daniel Jose Older's tweets (his was a key voice in the discussions of A Fine Dessert) 

• Jan 18, 2016. "Children's Literature About Slavery: The Struggle Continues" by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, at Storify. 

• Jan 18, 2016. "Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Let's Have Some Cake" by Elizabeth Bird at School Library Journal.
• Jan 18, 2016. "A Bumpy Ride" by Roger Sutton at Horn Book. 
• Jan 18, 2016. "Smiling Slaves at Storytime" by Paula Young Lee at Salon.
• Jan 18, 2016. "Under Pressure, Scholastic Recalls Racist Children's Book" by Deborah Menkart, at Huffington Post.
• Jan 18, 2016. "A bumpy ride" by Roger Sutton at Read Roger/Horn Book
• Jan 18, 2016. "Scholastic pulls children's book showing George Washington's slaves smiling." CBC Radio's interview of Edi Campbell. 
• Jan 18, 2016. "Scholastic Pulls Children's Book For the Way it Depicts Slaves" by Sara Jerde at Talking Points Memo.
• Jan 18, 2016. "Scholastic Inc. Removes "A Birthday Cake for George Washington" from Shelves by Jennifer Baker at Forbes. 
• Jan 19, 2016. "No Text is Sacred" by Megan Schliesman at Reading While White. 
• Jan 19, 2016. "What happens when children's books fail to confront the complexity of slavery?" by Michael W. Twitty at The Guardian
• Jan 19, 2016. "Steve Sheinkin! Also, when history is 'sanitized' for your protection" by Adrienne Russell and Aaron Barnhart at The Actually Podcast 
• Jan 19, 2016. "Early Literacy and NOT Teaching the 'Birthday Cake' Book," a Storify by Atena Educator
• Jan 22, 2016. "Controversial Picture Books Struggle to Help Children Understand Slavery." by Eyder Peralta at NPR's All Things Considered (features Alison Criner Brown, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, and Matt de la Pena).
• Jan 22, 2016. "#SlaveryWithASmile" podcast on the Ferguson Response Network; guests include Mikki Kendall, Roni Dean-Burren, Edith Campbell, and Allyson Criner Brown. 
• Jan 22, 2016. "It's Not Censorship" Storify by the Zinn Education Project, comprised primarily of Daniel José Older's responses to joint statement from the National Coalition of Censorship, the PEN American Center, and the American Society of Journalists and Authors. 
• Jan 22, 2016. "Take the cake." by Jamie LaRue at the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom blog. 
• Jan 23, 2016. "On Censorship and Slavery." Storify by Daniel José Older. 
• Jan 23, 2016. Updates to "A Birthday Cake for George Washington." Storify by @LeslieMac of the National Ferguson Response Network. 
• Jan 25, 2016. "Statement from Scholastic on Claim of Self-Censorship by Advocacy Groups" at the Scholastic website. 
• Jan 25, 2016. "Whips AND Chains" by Roger Sutton at Horn Book's Read Roger blog.
• Jan 26, 2016. "Dear Scholastic: Given Your Statement about Standards..." by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature.
• Jan 26, 216. "Have you been following the "A Birthday Cake for George Washington" Controversy? by Lin Oliver, Executive Director of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. 
• Jan 29, 2016. "The real censorship in children's books: smiling slaves is just the half of it" by Daniel José Older at The Guardian. 
• Jan 31, 2016. "Wrestling with a Birthday Cake for George Washington as a Mother and a Librarian." by Karen Jensen at School Library Journal.

• Feb 8, 2016. "We Will Continue to Raise Our Voices: Survival, Slavery, Censorship" by Daniel José Older at School Library Journal. 
• Feb 8, 2016. "You Don't Show the Sweet Without the Bitter" by Sarah Hannah Gómez at School Library Journal.
• Feb 8, 2016. "So People Disagree. Is This a Problem?" by Joan Bertin at School Library Journal. 
• Feb 9, 2016. "The Dangers of Self-Censorship" by Chris Finan at the American Booksellers Association. 
• Feb 11, 2016. "Why the Banning of 'A Birthday Cake for George Washington' Really Matters" by Ramin Ganeshram at Huffington Post
• Feb 11, 2016. "#WeNeedDiverseCritics: My Response to Children's Literature Stakeholders' Refusal to Take Critique" a Storify by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas
• Feb 11, 2016. Leslie Mac's video on Facebook, rebutting Ganeshram's article at Huffington Post.

_____

The book is no longer available at Amazon. See the last line in this screen capture, taken at 3:12 PM on January 18, 2016.

Around 4:00 PM on January 19, 2016, the price of the book on Amazon got a bit inflated. It went away pretty quickly. I doubt it sold. Someone at Amazon must have... removed the private seller's account.

Stephanie Shaw's THE LEGEND OF THE BEAVER'S TAIL

Today's post is one that walks you (readers of AICL) through my evaluation process (what I do) when I pick up a book that is put forth as a Native "legend."

The focus of today's post? The Legend of the Beaver's Tail "as told by" Stephanie Shaw, with illustrations by Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen. It was published in 2015 by Sleeping Bear Press. As the note above the cover indicates, I do not recommend it.

First comment
See the word "legend" in the title?  The word "legend" is often used to describe Native stories. It is one of those catch-all words that should be used in a universal way (applied to all peoples stories) but isn't.

Let's pause here. I'd like you to think about all the Bible legends you've read in the children's picture book format. Can't think of one? You're not alone. Most of the stories from the bible are not treated as "legends."

If you look up the definition of legend, you'll find the word is used to describe an old story. You're not likely to find "sacred" as part of that definition. Bible stories are old, but they don't get categorized as legends because they're sacred to the people who tell them.

Native stories are as sacred to Native people as Christian stories are to Christians. I view the selective use of "legend" as the outcome of a long history of Christians putting Native people forward as "other" to Christianity, with Christianity as THE religion that matters. Those "other" religions aren't religions at all in that Christian point of view. Instead, they're less-than, primitive, superstitious, quaint...  You get the point.

So--when I see "legend" used to describe a Native story, I wonder if the person telling that story (or retelling it) is aware of the bias that drives that person to use the word "legend."

Second comment
Who is this "legend" supposed to be about? Who tells it? The front cover doesn't tell us. Neither does the back cover. On the copyright page, we read this summary:

"Vain Beaver is inordinately proud of his silky tail, to the point where he alienates his fellow woodland creatures with his boasting. When it is flattened in an accident (of his own making), he learns to value its new shape and seeks to make amends with his friends. Based on an Ojibwe legend." --Provided by publisher.

Let's consider that last line: "Based on an Ojibwe legend." A lot of those "based on" books for children--the ones about Native people--draw from more than one Native nation's stories. A good example are the ones by Paul Owen Lewis. He used stories from more than one nation to come up with Frog Girl and Storm Boy. On his website, you can read that

"Storm Boy follows the rich mythic traditions of the Haida, Tlingit, and other Native peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast..." 

Those are distinct nations with their own stories. If you look at his books, they look like they are Native stories, but are they? If they combine aspects of more than one tribal nation? My answer: No. Let's look just at two that Lewis listed: the Haida and the Tlingit. In the US (in Alaska) there is the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes. At their website, you read that they're "two separate and distinct people" and there's also the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe (their direct website is down), also in Alaska. And in Canada, there's the Haida Nation.

The difference in the books Lewis does and Shaw's story is that he names several nations and she names one (Ojibwe). Does that make a difference? Maybe... let's keep on with this evaluation process.

Third comment
Who is Stephanie Shaw? Is she Native? With the "as told by" on the cover, do we have a story being told by a tribal member? At her website, I see that she lives in Oregon, but there is no mention of any Native heritage or working with Native populations or attending Native events... Nothing. None of her other books are about Native people. I assume then, that she is not Native. I wonder what prompted her to do this book?

As some of you know, I do not insist that a writer be Native in order to write Native stories. As I discussed elsewhere, I prefer Native writers, but I also think that a person who is not Native can write a Native story, and do it well--if they are careful with their research. Wondering about Shaw's research leads to my fourth comment.

Fourth Comment
What does Shaw say about her sources? Have you read Betsy Hearne's article, Cite the Source, Reducing Cultural Chaos in Picture Books, published in School Library Journal in 1993? An excellent article, it was a call for better source notes. It includes a "source note countdown" that can help reviewers evaluate a source note. The worst kind of note is nonexistent. It is #5 in Hearne's countdown. The best kind is #1, "the model source note."

So... let's look at the notes in Shaw's book.

There is a page in the back of the book titled "The Ojibwe People and Legends." Beneath it is a bibliography. Let's start with the note about Ojibwe people. The first paragraph tells us about various spellings of Ojibwe. The second paragraph is this:

Legends are an important part of Ojibwe culture. They are stories passed from one generation to the next, usually through oral storytelling. They are sometimes meant just for fun and entertainment. Other times they are used to teach a lesson about behavior. In a legend such as The Legend of the Beaver's Tail, we learn about how pride and boastful behavior can drive friends away. We also learn how sharing among friends can build a community.

It starts with that word (legend). I've already said a lot about it, but I invite you to read that paragraph, with Christianity in mind. Some of what we read in the Bible are stories about behavior. Can you think of a picture book that presents one of those stories as a legend?

Now let's look at the bibliography.

It consists of eleven items. Seven of them are about beavers. I assume Shaw and perhaps her illustrator, Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen, used those items for information about beavers. The other four (two books and two websites), I assume, are sources for what she provides about Ojibwe people. Let's take a look.

She lists Joseph Bruchac and Michael J. Caduto's Native American Stories published in 1991 by Fulcrum. It doesn't have an Ojibwe story about beaver. Shaw also lists Michael G. Johnson and Richard Hook's Encyclopedia of Native Tribes of North America published in 2007 by Firefly Books. I don't know that book, but from what I can see, it doesn't have a story about beaver in it.

She lists First People--the Legends. "How the Beaver Got His Tail." Accessed December 11, 2012, at www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/HowTheBeaverGotHisTail-Ojibwa.html.  I've been to that site before--and cringed. You're invited to "Click on my little kachina friends" to see what has recently been added to the site. Yikes! "Little kachina friends" is way over the line. Think of it like this: "Click on my little Catholic saint friends below..." instead. Feel uneasy? That's how I feel as I read "my little kachina friends." I wonder who wrote "my little kachina friends"? We don't know who owns, manages, or writes the content of that "First People" site. They use the word "we" a lot but who is "we" anyway?! They've got a section called "our favorite artists that paint Native Americans" --- but the ones they list aren't Native artists. Unless you're doing a study of appropriation, I think this site is one to stay away from.

She also lists Native Languages of the Americas, a site maintained by Orrin Lewis and Laura Redish. Though we do know who runs that site, its content is unreliable. Like the First People site, I've looked it over before and found it lacking. According to the site, Lewis is Cherokee and not as involved with the content as he once was. Redish is not Native.

Maybe the bibliography isn't one that Shaw developed. Maybe that page was put together by someone at the publishing house. Either way, it is troubling to see what gets listed in a book, as information to pass along to children.

Applying Hearne's countdown, I think Shaw's notes are at the not-good end of the scale:

4. The background-as-source-note. Better than nothing but still close to useless, this note gives some general information on the culture from which a picture-book folktale is drawn. It's important to know about traditions, but that's a background note, not a source note. In some ways, it's worse than no note at all because it's deceptive. It looks like a source note, so we let it slide by. Some notes (variation 4A) even manage to tell the history of a tale but avoid citing the book or books from which the tale was adapted. Others (variation 4B) declare that the picture-book author heard many stories from his/her grandmother/grandfather, but beg the question of where he/she heard/read this particular story. Implication is a sneaky and highly suspicious maneuver. Source notes, once and for all, tell sources. How can we know what's been adapted without being able to track down the author/artist's source?

Fifth comment
I imagine you're wondering, "well, what about the story itself?" The answer? It doesn't matter. Shaw may have told what some think is a terrific story, but without the information to support that story, it doesn't matter. It is introducing or affirming the chaos Hearne wrote about in her article.

Conclusion: Not recommended
If you care about providing young people with authentic or accurate stories about Native people, this one won't work. We're told it is an Ojibwe story but have nothing to support that claim and what we are given instead of a good source, is some highly questionable websites. In conclusion: Stephanie Shaw's The Legend of the Beaver's Tail is not recommended.

SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A FOX by Danielle Daniel

I find Danielle Daniel's Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox unsettling.

In a 2013 article in The Sudbury Star, I read that she is Métis, but that she wasn't raised knowing anything about her Métis heritage. She didn't want her son to grow up without knowing something about that heritage, so she wrote and illustrated Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox as a self-published book that is out this year in hardcover from Groundwood Books (House of Anansi Press). Here's an excerpt from the article (from October 28):

For first-time author and local artist Danielle Daniel, her new children's book Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox was a way to help her 10-year-old son connect to his Metis roots. Daniel, who stopped working as a teacher full-time last year so she could pursue her art, said she was not encouraged to learn about her Metis heritage when she was growing up. "I didn't want that to be the same for my son," she said. "I wanted him to feel proud about it and to celebrate it. "She dedicated the book - which explores 12 different totem animals -to her son and all the Metis and Aboriginal children who never had a chance to know the totem animals because of the residential schools.

The article suggests that residential schools are the reason she didn't know her culture and that this book can help her son and others, but I'm not sure it can. Daniel says she started dreaming about bears and so feels that a bear is her totem animal. That lines up with what I see in new age writings, and not with what I understand about the ways that Anishinaabe people view any of this. 

In the Author's Note, Daniel writes:

The word totem, or doodem in Anishinaabe, means clan. 

From my reading of key writings, and conversations with Ojibwe friends, I know that clans hold tremendous significance. 

That significance is lost in Daniel's treatment of them in the book. The words on each page start with "Sometimes I feel like..." There are 12 different pages for 12 different "totem animals." On each page, is an illustration of a child whose head/face are modified to look like the animal. This is done with a paper mask tied onto the child's head, or a headpiece that fits entirely over the child's head, or with some aspect of the animal being shown as though the child were part it and part human (the page about a beaver has a child with beaver ears, nose, and teeth). 

That treatment of the clans trivializes the importance of the clan system. Someone who lives with that system doesn't shift from one to another in the way Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox suggests. Daniel's book feels more like playing at being Indian than something that her son or any child can actually learn from. 

That's one part of why I'm unsettled but the other is because I have so much empathy for Native people who lost culture because of the boarding schools in the US (and the residential schools in Canada). Those "educational" systems were--and are--devastating to Native people and our cultures and respective nations. I support efforts to learn, but it must come by way of being with the people one identifies with. Artistic efforts to reconnect will fail without the teachings that come from being with the people you're trying to connect with. 

Not recommended.  

 

Cover of Parent Magazine's December 2015 issue

On Thursday, December 10, I learned about the cover of the new Parents magazine (h/t Heid and Allicia). Both are Native women and mothers.

Like them, I found the depiction of a little girl, in that toy headdress, screaming in an out-of-control way, as a play on the "wild Indian" stereotype. You know the phrase, I'm sure: "stop running around like a wild Indian." In 2006, AARP's magazine had a full-page Tylenol ad showing a kid, similarly clad, with a grandparent holding the child's hand and glad that she had Tylenol on hand.

I shared the image on Twitter, questioning editors at Parents directly, and asked others to ask, too. Their Twitter account was inundated. A few hours later, Parents issued an apology.

Here's the apology on Twitter:

And here's the apology on Facebook:

There are a lot of comments to their Facebook apology that suggest that readers are as ignorant of the problem as the editors and designers who put the cover together. Those comments indicate the tremendous need for the editors at Parents to do some follow up articles to help their readers understand the issues at play in their depiction of that child in that toy headdress.

In short: a headdress is not a toy. It holds tremendous spiritual significance to those who have them and to their families and tribal nations. That kind of headdress is specific to some tribes but not all of them, but the general public believes it to be something all tribes use, as if we are a single, monolithic entity.

In comments on Facebook and Twitter, I saw some people making comparisons between the "Bored No More" caption for that photo and the "Idle No More" movement of First Nations people. I think that is a valid point.

I hope the editors at Parents read all the comments and respond in an educational way. In my comment to them on Facebook I invited them to share books with their readers, books drawn from my list of Best Books.

In many places, I saw people appalled that Parents would do that cover in 2015, but we can point to many places in which similar imagery is used, uncritically. Mascots for sports teams is one example. A lot of this imagery is in children's books that I write about here, in the illustrations or in the text. I hate cliched expressions but they do have their place. There is much work to do.

Dear Philip Nel: Some Questions about WAS THE CAT IN THE HAT BLACK: THE HIDDEN RACISM OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE AND WHY WE NEED DIVERSE BOOKS

Editor's note on Dec 8 2015: Perry Nodelman's comment and Philip Nel's response are now in the body of the original post. 


December 5, 2015

Dear Phil,

I read your post about your new book, Was the Cat in the Hat Black: The Hidden Racism of Children's Literature, and Why We Need Diverse Books. On one hand, I want to say congratulations, because I know that people buy/read/teach your books, and as such, books that look at racism in children's literature are important.

On the other hand, as an activist scholar from a marginalized population, my thoughts and emotions since reading your post include me uttering "WTF." As I write that last sentence, I imagine a lot of my colleagues in children's literature rolling their eyes--not at you--but at me. The truth is, though, that my WTF won't hurt your career. You're a white male, tenured, at a Research I school. You have all the cred in the world. You also have many books published--books that have been very well received.

But.

I have some questions. I could raise them in an email and thereby have a private conversation with you, but, those private conversations tend to be helpful to those who already have power, so I've chosen to do this publicly.

In your blog post, you said that

"The book is about different manifestations of structural racism in the world of children's books: the subtle persistence of racial caricature, how anti-racist revisionism sustains racist ideas, invisibility as a form of racism, whitewashing young adult book covers, and institutional discrimination within the publishing industry." 

Let's start with structural racism.

You know We Need Diverse Books is trademarked, right? And you know that the organization itself is a grass roots effort comprised largely of people of color who object to the ways that structural racism consistently rewards white, and specifically white males, for the work they do--over the work of people of marginalized communities, right? Are you in conversation with anyone at WNDB about your book, and/or have you had conversations with anyone there about using that phrase in the title of your book?

I hope so, because if not, you might be rendering them invisible and thereby contributing to "invisibility as a form of racism."

Let's look at that invisibility you reference, next. In your post, you offer

"a hearty thanks to those who have read and commented here, answered my questions, offered feedback when I've presented portions of this work, or educated me via your books and articles. I've learned so much from all of you. (Hint: Look for your names in the book's Acknowledgements!) I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you."

Given your status, it seems to me that you could have done more than list people in the Acknowledgements. This is a huge presumption on my part, but my guess is that I am one of the people who may get listed in your Acknowledgments. Maybe I am, and maybe I'm not, but either way, your hearty thank you--though you mean well--will not be received in the way you might think it would be. There is a robust conversation online about people in privileged spaces being informed by the work of people of color--and using that work with little to no acknowledgement. Being listed in an Acknowledgement is not what people want to see.

Do you quote from Twitter, Tumbr, and various blogs, and do you cite the individuals? I hope so! In a way, this ask is similar to my asking about your use of the We Need Diverse Books phrase. By that, I mean that it is hard to say when a bit of information or knowledge ought to be attributed to a specific person. With social media, the voices we read are much more diverse than they've ever been before. It can mean that ideas and points of view seep into our own heads and shape our thinking and then become our thinking, and then it seems unnecessary to cite a specific person who was instrumental in ones own thinking! But it IS necessary. The community of people participating in conversations about children's books is larger than it has ever been before--thanks to social media--but scholars should not replicate injustices of the past wherein white males profit through the work of those who they and their ancestors, overtly and subtly, oppressed and oppress.

Actually--I think people could fairly wonder about the project itself. It could have been an edited volume, with you using your stature as a means to lift the names and work being done by people who aren't white males.

Course, in wondering that, I make some assumptions that you and I see things from a similar vantage point! Our conversations on your blog suggest that isn't necessarily the case. But you also said in your blog post, that some of those posts (where we conversed via the comments) contain "admittedly flawed" thinking, so maybe you're in a different space today than you were then and could, therefore, lift those voices.

You said that your book is:

"attempting to do for children's books what The New Jim Crow does for the justice system." 

We do need to get more people to think about racism in children's literature, and there's a lot of people who have been doing that for a very long time. You say that it is a "tall order" to do for children's literature what Michelle Alexander's book does for the justice system.

But.

You're inadvertently placing yourself on the same plane as a Black scholar like Michelle Alexander? I'm stuck right there. Stuck without words to capture what that feels like to me. A huge problem in children's literature is white saviors sweeping in to help or rescue characters of marginalized populations. And here you are, doing that very thing. Did you realize what that would feel like to people of color? Did you imagine any of us, reading those words, as you wrote them? Did you imagine us as your audience?

You say that you'll also look at institutional discrimination within the publishing industry. Seems to me that gives you space to write about institutional discrimination within the academy, too. I'm guessing you've read the various articles online about the experiences of people of color in the academy. We both know how white our field of study is, so it seems that your book might address barriers we face, as scholars. Does it?

My sense from that line in your post about flawed thinking in earlier posts suggests to me that you're in a more reflective space than you've been in the past, but the things you said also suggest that the flawed thinking is still there. We care so very much about children's books, and the work we do. In that care, we are often blind to what we say and how we say it. Maybe it is the flow of a new project that inadvertently blinded you to the way your words in that post read? Indeed, there are likely things I've said in this letter that are similarly blind and I hope that people will note them in comments.

All that said, I look forward to your book but hope that it is a bit more... reflective of your own privilege than your blog post about the book is.

Debbie

__________

Perry Nodelman's (Nodelman is amongst the key scholars in children's literature) comment, submitted on Dec 5, 2015 at 1:21 PM:

You raise important concerns here, Debby--ones that are constantly on my mind these days as I continue to think about and write about children's literature. I recently became painfully aware of my own unconscious expression of white privilege as I looked through old articles I was considering uploading to Academia.edu, and came upon one on Scott O'Dell's Sing Down the Moon which was published in Horn Book in 1984. It's full of praise for a novel about the “Long Walk” of 1863, in which American soldiers forced the entire Navajo nation to relocate after destroying their villages and crops. Among other things, I say in this essay that I admire O'Dell's choice of not providing his young Navaho narrator with a name for much of the book--a choice which I saw in 1984 as universalizing her and making her a sympathetic and believable character, and which I now see as a commentary on the deprivation of her personhood that in fact confirms and reinforces that deprivation. I also celebrate O'Dell's depiction of the Navajo stoicism and refusal to express anger at what is happening to them--another confirmation of a hoary stereotype.

Worst of all, it become apparent to me as I read through this old essay that I simply took it as an absolute truth that no one who was Navajo or even remotely like a Navajo would ever be part of the audience of the book: "Sing Down the Moon is about people unlike ourselves," I conclude, clearly and unconsciously assuming that all the readers of this book would all be white like me. I am wrestling now with whether or not I should upload this essay as evidence of how ignorant I was and much I've learned about these matters in the last three decades--much of it from you, Debby. Uploading it would have to potential to be very embarrassing; not doing so would misrepresent who I once was. I’m tending to choose to upload it.

At any rate, I find these issues of unconscious racism--my own and that of other white people, especially other white men--deeply troubling. I don't want to have to remain silent about the racism that I find so troublesome, but I'm also aware of the troubling aspects of my choosing to speak about what so troubles me. My own solution to this dilemma is to forefront in anything I write about these topics my awareness of the potentially poisonous aspects of my speaking about them—to acknowledge my white male privilege and to attempt to become aware of how it might be distorting how I see things and read texts before and during and after my readings of those texts. I want to acknowledge and accept the possibility that I might yet once more be seriously embarrassing myself, in the faith that even if I do, my doing so will help to further a cause I profoundly believe in by confirming the blindness of my privilege. And I would hope that any discussion of these matters by other white men like me would be equally aware of and forthright about the minefield they enter in writing about race, equally open to exploring the possibility of their blindnesses, and equally unwilling to assume a kind of authority that unconsciously replicates the very kinds of unconscious repression they want to argue against.

_________

Philip Nel's response, submitted on December 7, 2015 at 3:35 PM:

Dear Debbie,

Thanks for your critique of my unpublished manuscript. Here are some responses to your queries.

Yes, I cite We Need Diverse Books in the manuscript, and in the conclusion (a manifesto for anti-racist children’s literature) recommend WNDB as a resource. My hope is that citing WNDB several times in the manuscript, and in the title, will draw attention to the excellent work they do. I did not know that the phrase is copyrighted. Prompted by your query, I have sought their permission to use it in the subtitle and, if they prefer it not be in the subtitle, will remove it. (The original subtitle was "Structures of Racism in Children's Literature." I changed that after being told that it was too academic. I thought the current subtitle more clearly expressed the idea to a general audience.)

As is the case in all of my scholarship, this book builds on a lot of research, all of which I cite. I’ve learned from books, scholarly articles, blog posts, tweets, journalism, conference papers, and more. There are children's literature scholars, critical race theorists, children's & YA literature authors, theorists of affect, among many others. Then, in the Acknowledgments, I name people who have been especially helpful. But I haven't finished compiling the Acknowledgments yet, and I didn't want to publish an incomplete Acknowledgments on the blog — so, that's why I left that part of the blog post deliberately vague.

Michelle Alexander's work is amazing. The New Jim Crow should be required reading for every citizen. Even approaching her level of brilliance would be a tall order. So, if the blog post implied that I'm in her league as a writer or scholar, that's not my intent. I aspire to her level of work, which — to be frank — is how I approach all book projects. I want to write something better than I'm capable of, and so I look to other, better scholars as my role models. There are several such models for Was the Cat in the Hat Black? Alexander's The New Jim Crow is one. Robin Bernstein's Racial Innocence is another.

I do address my Whiteness in the book, yes. Indeed, I've been deeply concerned about how my subject position (straight White male) may impair my thinking about racism. I wrote a little about that here: http://www.philnel.com/2015/04/04/painofracism/

In conclusion, I think that the book will address your concerns. I’d be glad to send you a copy when it comes out.

Thanks for writing.

Best regards,

Phil

E. K. Johnston's PRAIRIE FIRE

E. K. Johnson's Prairie Fire is the sequel to The Story of Owen. Both are works of fantasy for young adults that are also described as alternative histories. Here's the synopsis for The Story of Owen:

"Listen! For I sing of Owen Thorskard: valiant of heart, hopeless at algebra, last in a long line of legendary dragon slayers. Though he had few years and was not built for football, he stood between the town of Trondheim and creatures that threatened its survival. There have always been dragons. As far back as history is told, men and women have fought them, loyally defending their villages. Dragon slaying was a proud tradition. But dragons and humans have one thing in common: an insatiable appetite for fossil fuels. From the moment Henry Ford hired his first dragon slayer, no small town was safe. Dragon slayers flocked to cities, leaving more remote areas unprotected. Such was Trondheim's fate until Owen Thorskard arrived. At sixteen, with dragons advancing and his grades plummeting, Owen faced impossible odds—armed only with a sword, his legacy, and the classmate who agreed to be his bard. 

Listen! I am Siobhan McQuaid. I alone know the story of Owen, the story that changes everything. Listen!"

Henry Ford hiring dragon slayers! Cool? I don't know because I didn't read The Story of Owen. I did, however, read the sequel, Prairie Fire. Here's the synopsis for it:

Every dragon slayer owes the Oil Watch a period of service, and young Owen was no exception. What made him different was that he did not enlist alone. His two closest friends stood with him shoulder to shoulder. Steeled by success and hope, the three were confident in their plan. But the arc of history is long and hardened by dragon fire. Try as they might, Owen and his friends could not twist it to their will. Not all the way. Not all together. The sequel to the critically acclaimed The Story of Owen.

Prairie Fire is primarily about Owen and Siobhan (who tells the story). Their assignment as dragon slayers is to guard Fort Calgary. As I started to read, I saw a lot of place names specific to First Nations but... no people who are First Nations (that comes later).

Early in the book, there's a reference to Manitoulin, a place that (I think) was destroyed in The Story of Owen. I read "Manitoulin" and right away wondered if that is a Native place. The answer? Yes. According to the Wikwemikong website, Manitoulin is home to one of the ten largest First Nations communities in Canada. I understand--of course--that in stories like Prairie Fire, writers can write what they wish--including wiping out existing places--but when the writer is not Native, and one of the places being wiped out is Native, it too closely parallels recent and ongoing displacements and violence done to Indigenous peoples. As such, I object.

We learn a bit more about Manitoulin when we get to the chapter, The Story of Manitoulin(ish) (p. 55):

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful island where three Great Lakes met. Named for a god, it could well have been the home of one: rolling green hills and big enough that it was dotted by small blue lakes of its own. It was the biggest freshwater island in the world, and Canada was proud to call it ours.

Named for a god? I don't think so. From what I'm learning, it means something like 'home of the ancestors.' I also wondered, as I read that line, who named it Manitoulin? Canadians? Canadians who are "proud to call it ours"? Another big pause for me. I doubt that First Nations people reading Prairie Fire would be ok with that line.

In Prairie Fire, we learn that the island, situated between the US and Canada, is inhabitable due to American capitalism (p. 55):  

Two whole generations of Canadians grew up, never having set foot on that pristine sand, never staying in those quaint hotels, and never learning to swim in those sheltered bays, but always there was hope that we would someday return.

Hmmm. That sounds to me like White people who are lamenting loss of pristine sand and quaint hotels. Again, no Native people. Kind of shouts privilege, to me. Another place named is Chilliwack, home to the Sto Lo people, but no Sto Lo people are in Prairie Fire. 

The chapter, Totem Poles, is unsettling, too. These poles are at Fort Calgary. Siobhan and Owen get there, via train. As they traveled, Siobhan worried that they'd be attacked by dragons (p. 69):

There are any number of American movies about dragon slayers fighting dragons from the tops of trains, but I was quite happy not to be reenacting one. We made it all the way to Manitoba before we even saw a dragon out the window, and it was far enough away that we didn’t have to worry about it.

That reminded me of westerns in which Indians are attacking the trains, and while I don't think Johnston intended us to equate dragons with Indians, I kind of can't help but make that connection when I read that passage. Anyway, as the train nears Fort Calgary, they see a row of metal teeth that stretch up into the air (p. 71):

The metal teeth were the tops of stylized totem poles, taller than the California Redwoods on which they were modeled, and thrusting jagged steel into the bright prairie sunset. Though most of the poles were around the wall of the fort, they were also scattered throughout the city itself, to prevent the dragons from dive-bombing any of the buildings. 

One of the dragon slayers thinks they are beautiful, but another says (p. 71):

“They’re probably covered with bird crap up close,” Parker pointed out.

Totem poles hold deep significance to the tribes who create them. I haven't studied Parker as a character, and it may be that he's an unpleasant sort who we readers are expected to dislike, but still... Was that "bird crap" line necessary? And why are totem poles cast as tools of defense in the first place? It reminds me of the United States Armed Services use of names of Native Nations and imagery for weapons of war (examples include the Apache attack helicopter and the tomahawk cruise missile). They--like mascot names--are supposedly conveying some sort of honor, but with victory over a foe the goal, are these honorable things to do?

The book goes on and on like that...

In Disposable Civilians, we read about a dragon called the Athabascan Longtail. Athabascan's are Native, too. And then there's the chapter called The Story of the Dragon Chinook. For those who don't know, Chinook is also the name of a First Nation. In Prairie Fire, the Chinook dragons are especially vicious. Their attacks are preceded by smoke. There's more railroad trains in this part of the story. To get railroad tracks laid, the government brings Chinese workers to Canada, "paying them just enough that they might forget about the dragons in the sky" (p. 124). And yes, those Chinese workers are amongst those disposable civilians.

In the Haida Welcome chapter (Owen and Siobhan are visiting Port Edward, on the coast), we get to know a character named Peter and his family. They are Haida. They play drums made of dragon's hearts. There's a stage where they dance. The stage has a row of waist high totem poles (p. 221):

These were wooden poles, traditional and fierce looking, each with painted white teeth inside a grinning mouth and an odd crest upon each head.

Owen, Siobhan, and the others gathered there watch the dancers on stage move in ways that suggest they're in a canoe. Siobhan remembers that the Haida are a sea-going nation. The person in front is their dragon slayer. She throws a rope with a large ring on its end to a dragon. On the fourth throw she catches it, the song and dance change, and the dragon is brought to the totem poles where it lies down, defeated. Owen wonders aloud if the dragon had drowned, and Peter laughs, telling him (p. 222):

“No,” Peter said. “The orcas took care of it.” “The whales?” Owen said. “They’re not called Slayer Whales for nothing,” Peter reminded him.

That part of the story makes me uneasy. What Johnston has done is create what she presents as a Native ceremony or dance. It reminds me of what Rosanne Parry did in Written In Stone. 

After that dance part, I quit reading Prairie Fire. Though I can see why it appeals to fans of stories like this, the erasure of Native peoples, the weaponizing of Native artifacts, and the creation of Native story are serious problems. I cannot recommend Prairie Fire.