The Whiteness of Romance Writers of America, and a tweet-review of Kathryn Lynn Davis's SING TO ME OF DREAMS

On December 24, I learned that a writer I (Debbie) respect tremendously had been suspended by the Romance Writers of America (RWA). Her name is Courtney Milan. I follow her on Twitter because she's a terrific advocate for accuracy in representation, and for #OwnVoices writers. RWA's action against her included saying she could never hold an office in RWA. It was Whiteness in action.

It has been a week now (today is December 31) and a lot has happened related to RWA's decision to suspend her. For comprehensive coverage of what has unfolded since December 24, I encourage you to read WTAF, RWA: Courtney Milan Suspended From RWA at Smart Bitches.

That action was taken because Courtney had critiqued the representations of Chinese people in Too Deep for Tears, a novel by Kathryn Lynn Davis. Davis didn't like what Courtney said. She believes Courtney's words led a publisher to drop a 3-book deal with her. So, she filed a complaint against Courtney. So did one of her friends, Suzan Tisdale (if you click on the WTAF link above, you can find links to the complaints). Their complaints led RWA to take action against Courtney. Enough people objected to their actions that the decision was reversed. But--a lot of damage was done and is, apparently, on-going.

When I learned that Courtney had been suspended for her critique of To Deep for Tears, I wondered if Davis had written any books with Native content. I looked her up and found out that she's got a two-book series where the main character is Salish. Strike that! The character is Davis's imagining of what a Salish woman in the 1870s would be like... And Davis is so wrong. What she created is stereotypes. I read the first book (initially published in 1990) and tweeted about it as I read.

You'll see some summary (what is happening in the story) and some critique, too. I may come back at some point to say more about Sing to Me of Dreams. For now, here's brief notes, followed by the tweet threads I did as I read the book. They're lightly edited.

• The Salish people and their lives, in this book, are more like cave people. In fact, it reminds me a lot of Clan of the Cave Bear. I'll note, however, that I read that book 40 years ago, so my recollection might be off. The point is, the Salish people that Davis created are primitive. One example: they don't wear shoes. They go barefoot. 
• That primitive characterization means that once the main character starts living with White people, she has a lot of admiration for their things (knives, stoves, etc.) 
• A lot of what I read in Sing to Me of Dreams makes me ask Davis about her source. A lot of white anthropologists wrote some highly biased books about Native peoples. In short, I'm giving her room to tell us why she wrote what she did. If we know her sources, we can shed light on their biases and errors. Davis has given her characters personal names and she's inserted what she says are Salish words throughout the book. If there is no source for any of this, then the entirety of the flaws rest on Davis. 
• Tanu/Saylah (the main character) is gratingly invested in helping and comforting the White men at the Ivy household. That is possible, but not plausible. All their talk of gold and land and riches is never countered by a single thought from a Native person (Tanu/Saylah) whose people were fighting to protect their lands from the likes of the Ivy men by that time. 
• There's a lot that Davis intends for us to read as Salish ceremonies and world view, but it sounds more like New Age appropriations. And some of it is ridiculous. An example of that is when Tanu and another girl are bathing (they're 15, I think) and one remembers that their ancestors tell them to beat their chests with flat rocks to keep their breasts from growing. 

Sing to Me of Dreams, from my point of view, is a mess. In defense of the book that Courtney criticized, Davis and others said she wrote it decades ago. In other words, before anybody knew anything about stereotypes. That is nonsense. What they mean is before they knew anything about stereotypes. Native and People of Color have known about these problems for a very long time. The thing is--the book that Courtney started reading--and the one I critiqued were republished in the 2010s as e-books. Presumably, Davis could have made edits to the books before the e-copies were released. Maybe she did! One would have to get a copy of the originals to do a comparison. If these 2010s editions are revised, I'd really hate to see what she had in the older versions. 

I didn't write much about the time during which Tanu/Saylah was at a mission school. I might come back to do that. It won't go well for Davis if/when I do. I bring it up now because when she first wrote this book, she had some knowledge about the boarding schools. She had enough to use one as a decorative plot device in her book. She's tokenized them and what they did--in reality--to Native peoples. 

Turning now to larger contexts, I see parallels between what is happening in RWA and what is happening in other associations. In particular, I am thinking about how a small and dedicated group of people have pushed very hard to make the Children's Literature Association (and children's literature) more diverse. We're met with derision by White people. Others want to help, or profess that they want to help, but they stumble over Whiteness. Rules about politeness and professionalism and civility are examples of that Whiteness.

Here's the threads I did. As noted above, I may return to this book with more to say, later.


Thread #1, started at 7:53 AM on December 24th, 2019:

#IStandWithCourtney because she pushes against misrepresentation in romance novels. This morning as I read about this action  RWA took against her, I'm reminded of some of the misrepresentations of Native ppls in bks in the genre. 

[Background: On Dec 23, 2019, the Ethics Committee of Romance Writers of America recommended that Courtney Milan be censured, suspended, and banned from holding any position of leadership on the RWA National Board or on any of the RWA Chapter Boards based on complaints filed by Suzan Tisdale and Kathryn Lynn Davis. The latter's complaint included objections to Courtney Milan's critique of the Chinese content of Davis's book, Somewhere Lies the Moon.]

My research and writing is on misrepresentations in children's and young adult lit. I sometimes read bks in other genres because someone writes to ask me about a particular bk, and because readers of those genres are also reviewers/buyers/librarians whose work shapes kid/YA lit. 

In reading the materials/threads abt RWA/Courtney, for example, someone said they had been a buyer for children's bks before moving on to work in romance. In kid/YA lit we see popular/award-winning writers whose works are racist.

I wondered if Tisdale or Davis wrote bks w Native content. So, I looked. 

Davis has a series called Dream Suite.

The first one is SING TO ME OF DREAMS. It came out in the 1990s and again, in 2015. The main character is named "Saylah." Her mother is Salish. Her father is white. It opens in the Pacific NW in 1861. 

Davis is not Salish. This is not an #OwnVoices book.

In SING TO ME OF DREAMS we have a white woman imagining Native women in the 1860s. Davis is crossing tremendous distances to create these characters.

The prologue shows me how dreadfully Davis has failed. 

In that prologue, "Koleili" is giving birth. "The People crouched outside the hut of woven mats, silent, expectant, for they felt the chill of magic in the air."

My guess is that most ppl won't see "hut" or "crouched" or "magic" as problems. 

There's several midwives tending the birth, including "Kwiaha, who had the gift of siwan--the little magic."

The word "siwan" is in italics. I guess we're supposed to think it is a Salish word. Is it? And if it is, does it mean magic?! I doubt it. 

The baby is born. The midwives usually splash a newborn with "sacred water to wake her sleeping, unborn soul."

Hmm.... is that how Salish people think of infants in utero? 

Before they used that sacred water, however, this newborn opens her mouth and smokes come from it. The hut is filled with soft blue light. This newborn then turns on her stomach, lifts her head and looks at them with "eyes the color of an Island lake - clear, ageless, and wise."

Outside that hut, "the sacred wolves" that are spirits of revered ancestors, make a circle and howl, thereby claiming "the girl child". Owls hoot. The newborn's mother hears the hoot and says her child will be a dreamer. 

Raven circles, and "Hawilquolas" (the man who would be father to the child) says "The child will be a Dancer."

"Thunderbird moved through the heavens..." and Kwaiha (the siwan) says "The child will be a healer."

The baby opens her mouth again but instead of a cry, her voice "flows like water, like the silvery music of the birds."

She's "the Prophet" who would bring her people to thrive. The prologue ends with "So it was promised, so it had come to be."

I'm sighing and full of questions as I read this prologue. 

The book I'm tweeting about (SING TO ME OF DREAMS), by the way, is by Kathryn Lynn Davis, a writer who filed a complaint about Courtney Milan. 

Davis's complaint, and another one from Suzan Tisdale led the RWA's Ethics Committee to take action against Courtney. Over at @SmartBitches, there are links to the docs. 

There's people in RWA characterizing Courtney and others who publicly critique books as a "mob." That kind of characterization is said about me and others in kid/YA lit who do public critiques of books. 

RWA received enough pushback to their decision on Courtney, that they've rescinded it, "pending a legal opinion." I'm taking a look at Davis's book because she and her bks mattered, somehow, to RWA. 

I've now opened (in Amazon's 'look inside') Davis's second book in the Dream Suite. In the Acknowledgements she thanks Suzan Tisdale. She did that in the acknowledgement for the first book, too. I know not to read too much into Acknowledgements but... hmmm. 

In bk 2, WEAVE FOR ME A DREAM, the year is 1894. Place is Vancouver Island, British Columbia. No prologue in this one. Instead, there's "The Storyteller." She is "Old Grandmother" weaving at her ancient loom. Weaving stories.

What I'm seeing in Davis's writing is stereotyping. 

I think it is accurate to say that she really likes Indians.

That's why she wrote these two books in the 90s and reissued them in the 2010s as ebooks.

But the "Indians" she likes/creates do not exist in real life. This is all romantic nonsense that is harmful to everyone. 

There is a defense of Davis over the bk Courtney critiqued, w/ people saying Davis wrote that bk in the 90s. Implied in that defense is that she wouldn't write it today. Implied is that she knows more today than she did then.

Ppl are also saying "nobody said anything" (then). 

Those defensive arguments are put forth all the time, but they are not valid.

Davis first published these Dream bks in the 90s and reissued them now, in the 2010s. I can't compare the two, but the ones available now are dreadful. 

And the "nobody said anything" defense is so weak!

Maybe people didn't want to make Davis uncomfortable, so they didn't say, HEY THIS IS A MESS.

They let her be.

If they are friends of hers, they aren't very good friends. They've let her republish this deeply flawed series! 

If they are friends who did not see the problems, and are reading/learning in this thread, they better talk to her right away. AND they better speak up whenever they see an outsider trying to create characters like this. 

Just pause a minute and think about what writers who create historical fiction/romance are trying to do when they're not of the culture or nation that their story is about. They're leaping backwards in time but they're making other kinds of leaps, too. Language is one. 

As I read thru Davis's book, I see another italicized word. "Siem." Supposedly, it means "Head Man." What is Davis's source?

I also see that she has created several characters whose names start with a K.

Why? 

Another leap: from whatever Davis believes (spiritually or religiously), to what she thinks Salish ways are... And I wonder if Davis would call, for example, Christianity "magic" (in the bk, some of the characters have "magic"). 

Circling back to the prologue. The baby born in the prologue is called Tanu. The Salish man named Hawilquolas... he's a man of status. He's that "Siem" I mentioned a couple of tweets back. His protection keeps Tanu and her mother from being despised because "... Tanu had been illegitimate, the seed of a stranger. The People would have cast out Koleili and her baby."

Is that accurate? Would Salish ppl of the 1860s do that? As before: what is the source for this information?

I'm remembering Cassie Edwards defending her stories

So anyway, Tanu and her friend Kitkuni are bathing...

‘Our ancestors pounded their chests with flat stones to keep themselves from growing here.’ Kitkuni pointed at her swelling breasts. ‘Perhaps they were wiser than we.’

What is the source for THAT?! I'm not far into the book and it is more and more of this same kind of thing. I'm not tweeting every thing that makes me cringe.

Some may think it is cruel to do that to Davis. The sympathy is for her rather than for readers who are misinformed by what she's written. 

Oh... now there's a "Trickster, and, a few pages later, a "shaman."

Over and over there's evidence that this is a not-Salish person creating the words, thoughts, actions of what they think a Salish person would say/do ... and over and over, it is a mess.

Now, Davis's character is calling the shaman's clothing a "sacred ceremonial costume."

Tanu is also called "She Who Is Blessed." And... the people view her as their Queen. Much is made of her green eyes. 

Now, Tanu meets her real father. Nicolas. Things about her that are revered, she realizes, come not from her Salish mother, but from her French father.

I am gonna step away from this book. I may pick it up again later but what good would come of doing that? 

My larger point is that @romancewriters has at least one writer who is creating harmful content about Native peoples. I'm calling it out. When Courtney Milan called out that author for harmful content, complaints were filed. RWA's ethics cmte decided to censure Courtney Milan. 

RWA has some work to do. I'm not a member. If I was, I'd cancel my membership but I'd keep putting public pressure on them, calling for change. Substantial change. 

In her complaint, Kathryn Lynn Davis said that she lost the promise of a 3-book contract because of Courtney Milan's "cyber-bullying."

If the 3-bks are like SING TO ME OF DREAMS, then I hope the contract was cancelled because whoever that contract was with said "never mind."

In defense of Courtney's tweets about TOO DEEP FOR TEARS she said that if Courtney had read the whole book, she would see that her objections are wrong.

I'm still rdg SING TO ME OF DREAMS to see if there's anything in here that tells me I'm wrong to object to that passage the Salish girl says about how their ancestors pounded their chests with stones to keep their breasts from growing:

What I usually do in my critiques is to note a passage (like that one) and see if I can figure out what the author's source might be.

It is important to know what sources are--and to say "don't use this" because of unreliable content in some sources. Esp ones about Native ppl. 

It is, in short, a service I provide to writers when I do critiques. I do that even when the content in a passage (like that one) is ridiculous because obviously, Davis thought it was legit, and all the ppl who read the bk and didn't say 'wait" to it think it is legit, too. 

All of this matters so much! Davis is serving as an editor. If your book has Native content--I hope this thread is telling you that she might not be equipped to help you.

Actually, because she's an editor, I think I'm gonna ask her a question in my next tweet in this thread. 

Hey, @kathrynlyndavis: I'm trying to verify information in your bk, SING TO ME OF DREAMS. Can you tell me the source you used for that passage abt Salish ppl using stones to pound their chests? 

And, @kathrynlyndavis, can you tell me the source you used for the words you present as being Salish words? 

A note for ppl who missed this info in the thread: SING TO ME OF DREAMS was published in the 1990s and again in the 2010s. Here's the two covers:

The first part of Davis's bk is set in a Salish village where Tanu is revered.

There's a gathering (of whites, called "Strangers" in the bk, and Native ppl). The men of the village walk with Tanu in a protective way as the white men gape at her. 

But then, intrigued by things, they [the men of the village] "moved barefoot" away from her.

Why are they barefoot? Why point out that they are barefoot? 

Then, Tanu sees her mother looking at someone (a white man). She goes to him. They kiss. He is Tanu's biological father.

Later a white man tells the Salish about a missionary school where they will be taught to talk, dress, and act right, "give you all a better life."

He's drunk; the Salish people look at him in "stony or amused silence."

That night as she walks, Tanu hears a song she's heard forever, in her head. This time it is real, and is being sung by her biological father (Nicolas). She's distraught to know that it is "in her blood."

Her voice (remember the prologue?) was what it is, because of her white blood. Her voice, as part of her sacred power, comes from "a Stranger" (white man).

The shaman tells her that she has to find peace with her mixed blood. 

They're leaving their summer village for their Longhouse. As she helps she noticed Yeyi (a little girl), trembling.

Later Tanu goes into the forest to find peace with her mixed blood identity. The next day, someone from the village finds her. They need her because Yeyi is sick.

When Tanu sees Yeyi she recognizes what's wrong because the shaman ("Tseikami") had shown her scarlet fever "Red Sweating Sickness" before in a nearby village. Yeyi's family tells Tanu that Yeyi is "ghost-struck" and they want her to send the ghost away. Tanu asks where Tseikami is, and Yeyi's mother tells her that he "packed his rattles, his clothes, and left us."

Tanu thinks he's left because he knows they're all in danger. 

Yeyi's mother says that Yeyi will be ok because Tanu "makes miracles" and that nobody "has more spirits than she. Our Queen will do what Tseikami feared to do."

I didn't note it earlier, but "queen" is a European convention. To have these Salish ppl use it is wrong. 

There's other examples of what goes wrong when an outsider to a ppl tries to write as if they are an insider. Like, "hut." That's one of my pet peeves. Writers: do some homework! Find out what a ppl called their homes. Don't default to "hut."

I don't think I said anything about how "queen" came about... When Tanu was six years old, the ppl were starving. She had a dream. She and three hunters went out with her on a canoe. She saw a buck, drew her bow, and killed it. But it wasn't a buck! 

The people are "struck dumb at the sight of a doe with antlers, which denied her sex and made her more than it was possible to be -- a miracle!" Because that six year old had dreamt of it and then killed it, she was their savior and a queen.

I don't get it. 

Anyway, those antlers had been kept by that shaman who took off. They're brought out and placed by the fire. People touch them as Tanu tries to heal Yeyi.

Yeyi's family also gets sick. 

Just before she dies Yeyi tells Tanu that the ppl blame Tanu for not freeing them from "the evil spirits" making them sick.

"It is easier to say you are weak than to believe the Changer is so cruel that he would let this happen. If I believe in you, I must doubt him."

The Changer? Who is that?! (Yes, I'm being a bit snarky...)

Just before Hawilquolas dies, he tells Tanu that the people have lost faith in her, and so, she is free, and he wants her to seek peace.

Just before Koleili (Tanu's mother) dies, she tells Tanu it was not an honor for the ppl to view Tanu as a queen. The ppl, Koleili says, did not view her as a person who deserves a husband and children. Kaleili tells Tanu she has to leave.

Tanu is overcome with grief and is weak after tending to so many. She drifts in and out of consciousness, and sees "the Stranger's school."

Tanu leaves. She goes to the mission school where they give her a new name, "Sally Fisher."

She [pretends] can't say "Sally." She can say "Saylah" and so, that becomes her name. 

I'm not commenting on all the details I'm including in this thread about SING TO ME OF DREAMS.

At this point in the story (about 1/5th of the way into it), the location changes from a Salish one to a White one. For 3 years, "Saylah" is at the mission school. 

Then, she leave the school and goes to live as a caregiver for a white family.

That's where she meets a white man who, according to what I'm seeing, she will marry.

Thread #2, started at 3:25 on December 28, 2019.

Starting a new thread as I read Kathryn Lynn Davis's SING TO ME OF DREAMS.

One thing a lot of writers do that I find annoying: describing eyes of a Native person as "black eyes." That's in here 10 times. She doesn't mean from being hit or injured. She means the iris is black. 

And eyes shaped like almonds. That's in here, too. Four times. 

Remember in that earlier thread, I noted that Salish men are barefoot? That's so annoying--the idea that Native ppl went without shoes on their feet.

According to what Davis is telling her readers, that's the way the Salish ppl lived.

Here's Saylah (previously, Tanu), talking to the white woman (Flora) who runs the white household Saylah now lives in as a caregiver:

‘I am Salish,’ she explained. ‘I wore no shoes until I joined the missionary school,"

White ppl think Native ppl didn't wear shoes. You can see that in the U of Illinois mascot, "Chief Illiniwek"... see the bare feet? But they needed to protect their hands. See? Look at those gloves.

Nonsense! Whiteness and its nonsense!

Julian is the guy who Saylah is gonna marry. But right now, she's living in the house owned by Julian's father, Jamie. Jamie is bedridden. But, he wants to see Saylah. Julian takes her into his room. She remembers when a girl at the school got the "Red Sweating Sickness."

Remember? That is what (according to Davis), the Salish ppl called scarlet fever.

But, "Red Sweating Sickness" looks to be something Davis made up. The searches I do on that phrase lead to her bk or bks about her bk. 

Again, I turn to Davis to ask, @kathrynlyndavis what is your source for that? And--I'll note again that I'm asking this because you are an editor, with the responsibility of helping writers. What sources are you using, and are you recommending them to your writers? 

Ah--maybe I'm wrong about your role at @GlenfinnanPubl1. It looks like you're an acquisitions editor: (glenfinnanpublishing.com/our-editors)

Back to my reading of SING TO ME OF DREAMS. I'm rdg about other white families/characters now, that Julian's family interacts with. There's Edward and his wife, Sophia.

Sophia's dad is in Boston and didn't approve of Edward. He writes letters to Sophia. In one, he writes that he worries she is in danger, "from the savages who people those islands."

As I read on, will Sophia tell her dad they're not savages--that "savage" is a stereotype and embodies bias? 

That letter is in chapter 22. In chapter 25, we see Sophia writing back to her father. Her reply is full of deceptions. She's poking him and his sensibilities, on purpose, but I don't know if it works or not. Here's what she said:

Oh! I meant to insert a link to the previous thread right away, and forgot. So... here is the start of that thread.

Dr. Debbie Reese (tribally enrolled, Nambé Pueblo)@debreese

#IStandWithCourtney because she pushes against misrepresentation in romance novels. This morning as I read about this action RWA took against her, I'm reminded of some of the misrepresentations of Native ppls in bks in the genre.

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7:53 AM - Dec 24, 2019

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In that earlier thread, I noted that when she was 6, the little Salish girl killed what everyone thought was a buck but that turned out to be a doe. That was a miracle, they felt, and so they viewed her as their queen (yeah, that is a problem). I bring that up now because that deer makes another appearance when Saylah left the mission school to work for the Ivy family. When she arrives at their property, she sees a tree that has been carved into a buck with antlers. She views it as a sign that tells her she is where she needs to be. In the Ivy household Saylah coaxes Jamie Ivy out of his bed where he's been sick for some time. Julian is his adult son. One evening he tells them all the story of that carved deer. It is symbolic for him, about where he's meant to be. 

Where he's meant to be... land that belonged to what tribal nation? Saylah seems unaware of any tribal nation's fight to protect their lands from White people.

Remember--the story Davis tells starts in 1861. By then, the Salish had already met Lewis and Clark and tribal nations in that area had been negotiating with the US for several years.

As depicted in this bk, there's very little contact with Whites until 1876.

Course, the main character of this bk has an absent white father, so.... there's that. 

I'm not sharing much, now, as I read through Kathryn Lynn Davis's SING TO ME OF DREAMS.

To refresh: the main char is meant to be a Salish woman abt 19 years old. When she was w/ her ppl (birth to 15), her name was Tanu. W/ whites, it is "Saylah" ("Sally Fisher"). The yr: 1876. 

From 15-18 years old, Saylah was in a mission school (her choice to go there when she feels rejected by her people). At 18 she goes to live with the Ivy's a white family who need help. There's a fella, Julian. His father is bedridden. Why, is a mystery. 

That father's name is Jamie. His wife is Flora. They have a son, Theron (he's half bro to Julian).

One day Saylah takes Theron out, to teach him how to shoot a bow and arrow. They take two bows that were hanging on the walls in the Ivy home. 

They don't have arrows for the bows. So, they're "collecting cedar sticks" to make the arrows.

Hmm... I'm quite skeptical of that!

But anyway, Saylah carves them, adds feathers, and she shoots one, hitting the target. Theron wants her to shoot a squirrel next. 

But she tells Theron that it is wrong to do that for fun. The spirits will be angry. She tells him:

"If you are genuinely hungry or the animal threatens your life, then is it allowed. The animals are glad to give up their lives to feed us, the Changer teaches.’"

There's "Changer" again. What is Davis's source for that?

Theron wants to know who Changer is; Saylah tells him Changer is another name for God. She goes into details on animals giving their lives, how it is a gift, but that:

‘perhaps the animals enjoy the chase as much. Just because they must give up their lives does not mean they must do it easily.’"

Sigh. Then, Saylah and Julian talk about hunting with a bow and arrow versus a gun. She wants to show him that a bow and arrow is a better weapon. So they set off into the woods.

But... she decides he needs a beaver skin to hold the arrows in... So off they go to find a beaver. 

They find one; she kills it with the bow and arrow. He admires her kill (thru the neck, saving the pelt). But a cougar appears and he raises the bow and arrow, intending to kill it. She stops him because "the cougar was sacred among the Salish."

Julian tells her cougars are dangerous to his people; Saylah realizes she's not with her own people anymore and sort of panics. She comes to, in Julian's arms.

Note: obviously this "Salish" story is far from that [a Salish story] ... it is a white woman's imaginings. Hmm... Julian and Saylah return to the house. No further mention of the beaver, of using its skin. What happened to it?

That proposed use of a fresh beaver skin reminds me of the fresh skunk skins two Indian men wear in LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. 

Meanwhile, Theron (Julian's little half-bro) and Paul (neighbor's boy) are off in the woods. Paul is mad, having seen his dad, Edward, having sex with someone who isn't his mother (her wife).

THEY SEE THE COUGAR! It sees them! They hide in a log.

Their parents are worried. It is now nighttime. Saylah sees the parents talking and says she'll go find the boys. Edward asks how she'll do that, in the dark.

She says "I am of Salish blood." (Me, rolling my eyes at this speech.)

Another by-the-way note: whenever this Salish woman speaks, she doesn't use contractions. LOT of white writers create Native speech that way... they think it sounds more authentic. It doesn't. 

Saylah and Julian set off into the forest to search for the boys.

They find footprints. When she sees the cougar prints chasing the boys, she panics, remembering she had stopped it being killed. 

As they search there's references to "the spirits" who do this or that thing.

Back at the house, Jamie (Julian's sickly father) comes out of his room and waits with the others. He tells them Saylah will find the boys. 

Saylah and Julian did find them and have brought them into the house. Saylah will use her herbs to help them. Paul is in shock; Theron has a fever from the cougar mauling his arm.

In case I didn't mention it earlier, Jamie and Edward were friends at one time. 

As I've read Davis's book, I've noted her use of Native ppl sitting "cross-legged." It appears six times. Here's one (she's reminiscing):

"Of sitting cross-legged near glowing coals, knee to knee with the other women, the salt air all around us."

It grates, frankly. I've seen that in other bks, too.

Clearly, Davis knows not to use "Indian style." But why does she (or any writer) feel the need to describe how a Native person sits?! If she removed "cross legged" from the sentence, is anything lost? What does having it add? 

60% of the way through SING TO ME OF DREAMS. Slow going and not enjoying the reading itself but hope that ppl who write or review bks (no matter what genre) that have Native content are reading, sharing, talking about the errors in the book. 

When chapter 48 opens, Paul and Theron (who were attacked by a cougar) are in the stable, afraid to go back into the woods. Paul is envious of Theron's wound.

Theron remembers Saylah saying that her people (Salish) call it "Mark of the Cougar."

Here's a screencap of that part. I've done a search of Salish + "Mark of the Cougar" and found nothing. Seems something that Davis made up, but if you're reading this thread and I'm wrong, Ms. Davis, please tell me! What is your source!

And a very strong caution to writers: DO NOT MAKE UP STUFF YOU THINK NATIVE PEOPLE SAY, DO, OR THINK! You're likely relying on stereotypical ideas you've absorbed. We are real people, of many distinct Native Nations. STOP MAKING STUFF UP! You're misleading readers. 

Oh... there's a big party at the Ivy house. Julian is teaching Saylah how to dance (no specific kind of dance is mentioned) and now she's telling him to meet her by the carved deer later so she can "teach you to dance as my People do."

Saylah goes off to dance with Theron. While that happens, Lizzie (a white woman that Julian has had sex with) stands by him and watches him watching Saylah. She says that "Indian women are very mysterious" and that it makes them fascinating. Men can't resist what they don't understand, she says. She moves off and Edward stands with Julian. He's heard what Lizzie said and smiles conspiratorially at Julian, saying that Lizzie s right:

"If we could just find out their secrets, understand them, if you know what I mean, we could resist them." 

Earlier in the story, there was a scene where Edward is having sex with a Salish woman. 

Still at the party, Edward starts telling the guests about how he and Julian first came to the area... looking for gold. They didn't find much but Julian had guessed it wasn't gold or coal that would make them rich, but the land. Guests cheer as this story is told. 

Saylah says and thinks nothing about any of that. Some ppl are probably wondering if I have any suggestions for what Saylah might be saying or thinking, but I don't. Some edits would be easily done (deleting all the sitting cross-legged parts) but the premise is way too flawed. 

Way back in the thread I noted that there's tension between Jamie and Edward, and we're learning why now. Back when Jamie was married to Simone (Julian's mom), Edward stole land from Jamie and also had an affair with Simone. As she hears this, Saylah is feeling tremendous empathy for Jamie and what he's lost.

She doesn't have a thought, at all, for the land, or her own people and what they've lost.

I know--that's not the story Davis wanted to tell. What DID Davis want to tell readers? 

The party is over and Julian heads to the deer so Saylah can teach him to dance. She leads him deeper into the woods. He's worried about wild animals but she tells him the drums will keep them away.

Drums? Oh...

She's led him to place where she uncovers something. He says it is their old well. But she says:

‘Tonight it is a drum. Usually, you see, there are the drummers and the dancers. I had to think of a way to do both alone. I was lucky to find the well.’

Sounds to me like she's gonna dance on that old well and that her footsteps will make it be a drum, too.

You know what comes to my mind?! This:

She tells him that he said he wanted to know about her people. "This is the most sacred thing I can teach you." He's surprised that dance is that sacred. She tells him it is much more than that:

She says

"Not merely to move to the beat of drums, to the cadence of rattles and the sounds of the night, to change with the firelight, altered every moment by the breeze. To dance, yes, but also to celebrate. That is what I wish to teach you.’

She's made a fire. Now she takes off her coat. He sees she's barefoot, is wearing a necklace of bear and cougar teeth, a top of pounded bark, a cedarbark skirt, and anklets of shell and deer hooves.

She's also brought a bottle of whiskey for him to relax. Now, he takes a drink. 

She's dancing, stamping on the well/drum, tapping another drum at her waist. She invites him to join her and feel what she feels, that nothing else in all the world is like it, but that he won't feel it if he's afraid. (This is so weird.)

He's drunk and desires her. She's also singing. He thinks he'll look like a fool if he joins her. Nobody will see, she says. They're alone "with the magic of a Salish campfire and the beat of Salish drums." Watch, she tells him, and his body will know when it is time to join her. 

[Note: I asked colleagues in Native lit if they know of/rec bks in this genre. Malea Powell pointed to an episode of Native America Calling on this topic. ] (nativeamericacalling.com/thursday-octob…)

Saylah sings a song (in English). Julian asks about it. She tells him it was Tanu's song, that she was queen of her people but had died long ago. She keeps on dancing (and for me, that image of Tiger Lily is definitely what I see as I read these words of how she's dancing). 

Finally, Julian gets on the well/drum with her. He thinks he'll finally have sex with her but, no. He realizes that's not what she's offering. She wants him to join her in "this ritual" which is a glimpse of her true spirit. So, he starts to do what she's doing. He starts to sweat, so takes off his shirt. She puts her bear and cougar tooth necklace on him.

Until now, that cougar that she had stopped him from killing (that later attacked the two boys) had been between them.

But now, it "binds us in his beauty and his rage."

They dance, finally collapse, and sleep (no sex). 

Back at the house, it is clear that Jamie is gonna die of a broken spirit, even though everybody (including Saylah) is pleading with him not to give in to that pain.

Later, Saylah tells Julian about Salish ways of understanding death. Again, Ms. Davis: what is your source?

Julian notices that she said "they" and not "we." He understands she's been in pain all this time, too. They kiss but she resists the emotions she feels. Julian tells her she's like Jamie (broken). 

In the next chapter, it is nighttime and Edward is having a nightmare. He wakes. Sophia reaches for him but he takes off, down the stairs, out the door, and sure enough, the Indian girl is there, waiting for him. This girl is Salish, too, but to him she has no name. 

Saylah knows her, and that her name is Alida (this was earlier in the book). She's described throughout as "girl" but I don't think she's a girl. She's a woman. So, why "Indian girl" over and over?

Anyway, after they have sex she says she's leaving and that she wants him to know her name. She used to feel pleasure when she was with him but lately, she feels more pity than pleasure. She's determined to leave. He tells her that he'll tell her what he did to Jamie if she'll stay. 

She isn't going to stay but thinks it will help him with the guilt he carries. So (sigh), she sits crossed legged beside him.

Back at the Ivy house, a priest is there now to give Jamie last rites. Saylah's not cool with it. The priest tells them that Jamie has sins that have to be cleansed so he has a chance to enter heaven.

Saylah tells the priest his religion is strange. 

Then she tells him about "the world of the Salish." She challenges him over and over on Catholicism and the family asks him to leave.

I bet ignorant readers think that's a great scene but they likely don't recognize the noble savage stereotyping throughout, and here, too. 

Whiteness tends to think of Native ppl as blood-thirsty savages (negative stereotype) or tragic, wise ones (positive stereotype). The latter is the "noble savage" that you see in some mascots, and in "big Indian" statues or "end of the trail" images. (roadsideamerica.com/story/11874) 

Ppl tend to think that romantic stereotypes are good--but they aren't. That is something that people need reject. Negative or positive stereotypes are STILL stereotypes that obscure who we are, as people. 

Ah, now, this next scene is interesting. Julian is worried because the priest cursed his dad (Jamie). But, Jamie tells him that's an overzealous priest and that others are ok. He talks about the ones that gave comfort to Julian's mom (Simone). Later when Julian and Saylah talk, Julian tells her he hates priests because one took his mother away (literally). Whenever they were around, he says, his mother's joy was gone.

Jamie is dying and tells Saylah he no longer believes in his own faith. Now, he believes in her. 

Alida and Saylah--both created as Salish women (by Davis)--to give comfort to white folks. 

Jamie dies. At his burial, Saylah sings a song. Is it supposed to be a Salish song, translated into English? Or is it something Davis made up?

Native songs are sung in Native languages. Many (most?) songs are composed, in large measure, of vocables rather than a words. 

A few days later, she tells Flora and Theron she wants to burn cedar to cleanse the house of ghosts. They don't want to do that but she persuades them it is a good thing to do. Then she sings and waves singed cedar boughs around.

Sigh (again). 

Almost done! At the 90% mark of this book.

Saylah and Julian are in the forest. He tells her he loves her; wants her to say it back but she doesn't want to because it'll make her feel vulnerable and open to hurt again like when her ppl turned away from her. She gives details:

He realizes she's Tanu. "You were their queen."

He tells her they needed her to be that for them, and that he needed her to be"a gift from God" for him. But now, he sees her as a woman who is dear to him, not for her magic or wisdom but for her heart. All through this scene she can hear drums pounding (in her head) and an ancient song. They are loud "endless, throbbing drums." But then, the song ends and the drums fade.

She goes to him and says "I am Saylah. And I love you."

They return to the house. The next morning she wakes and looks at Julian, thinking that if she chooses him, she has to chose his world, too. "the white world, the world of the Strangers."

In the final chapter Saylah goes back to her ppl. She doesn’t see them for real. She falls asleep and the Salish guy who had wanted to marry her finds her. She doesn’t wake but there’s communication going on. He releases her and she goes back to Julian. End of story. 

I guess they will marry in the sequel. I will pull all these tweets into a blog post as a record of what I said and try to make some overall observations that I hope will be helpful to writers, editors, reviewers... no matter the genre.

Recommended: Standing Strong by Gary Robinson

Standing Strong
Written by Gary Robinson (Choctaw/Cherokee)
Published in 2019
Publisher: 7th Generation
Reviewed by Jean Mendoza
Status: Recommended

For many months when we were adapting Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People, Debbie and I followed what was happening with #NoDAPL activism on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, in spite of the generally poor media coverage. Eventually, we had the opportunity to add a chapter about Standing Rock/NoDAPL to the book, showing how themes of sovereignty and resistance that ran through the rest of the book were expressed in that 21st century situation. We hoped it would not be long before we could recommend books for young people about that Indigenous fight for environmental justice.

Debbie has already urged readers to pre-order Carole Lindstrom's gorgeous We Are Water Protectors (illus. by Michaela Goade, out in March 2020). Now, I'm pleased to recommend Gary Robinson's 2019 short novel Standing Strong, a work of Standing Rock-related fiction for teens. Robinson's main character is Rhonda Runningcrane, a Blackfeet high school senior. Rhonda struggles with grief and outrage over how things are in her family and her community; when we meet her, she's recovering from her own suicide attempt and the loss of her best friend to suicide. She's not isolated. She has friends and two strong allies (her hard-working handyman uncle and her therapist) but it's hard for her to envision a realistic way to make a better life for herself.

When she hears that clothing and supplies are being collected for a pipeline protest at "Standing Stone" reservation, something sparks her interest. She talks her friends and her uncle into helping gather donations, and the girls soon fill a pickup truck and take off for the newly forming camps a 12-hour drive away. Once Rhonda gets there, she begins to feel a sense of purpose. Much of the rest of the book is about her involvement in the life of the camp, how it affects her, and how her know-how with tools and with social media contribute to the well-being of that activist community.

This is fiction, not a Standing Rock memoir, and it should be appreciated as such. The events described -- daily standoffs, racism of pipeline workers, attacks on water protectors by trained dogs,  the overly-enthusiastic destruction of the camps by law enforcement, and so on --  don't necessarily follow the exact chronology of the actual Standing Rock water protection effort. Young Native people have been centrally involved in many such actions, and will continue to be.

Robinson pushes back on some stereotypes. Far from being a wise and thoughtful elder, Rhonda's grandmother is just generally a rotten human being. The wise and thoughtful elder Rhonda does meet later in the book is no quiet old dear sitting by the fire making pithy statements -- she kicks butt, tooling around the camps at high speed, providing encouragement to the community (especially the youth), and taking a central role in the camp's direction and energy. Robinson also avoids the trap of focusing only on the valor of headline-makers. As more than one of his characters suggests, the work of putting bodies on the line in physical protest is important, but so is the the behind-the-scenes work of keeping a camp running and getting the word out to the wider world. There are many ways to be a water protector, and Rhonda finds hers. She will fight for environmental justice -- maybe not as someone who makes headlines, but as one who brings all her courage, commitment, and knowledge to that fight.

I hope many young people find this book. Among its strengths is its portrayal of resistance not as some exceptional life choice, but as a "normal," rational (even necessary) response to injustice and oppression. Robinson dedicates the book to the Standing Rock water protectors, and to Native teen suicide survivors. He weaves some mental health messages into the story (such as if your medications are helping you, keep taking them and making a positive contribution to something larger than yourself can be a healing act). He also includes a page with links to the Indigenous Environmental Network and related Web sites, as well as suicide prevention resources.

Note: Robinson is of Choctaw/Cherokee descent, and his main characters in Standing Strong are Blackfeet. I'm not able to say for sure whether his description of life on the Blackfeet Reservation are what citizens of that nation would describe, though nothing leapt out at me as problematic.

Non-Blackfeet readers of Standing Strong might want to find out more by going to the Blackfeet Nation Web site. From there, they can find out about Badger Two Medicine and how the Blackfeet Nation is handling its water resources.

RECOMMENDED: Red River Resistance: A Girl Called Echo, V.2

Red River Resistance: A Girl Called Echo, Volume 2 

Written by Katherena Vermette (Metis)

Illus. by Scott B. Henderson. Colors by Donovan Yaciuk 

Published in 2019

Publisher: Highwater Press

Reviewed by Jean Mendoza 

Status: Recommended

Red River Resistance is the second graphic novel in Katherena Vermette's A Girl Called Echo series. The Metis teen protagonist of Volume 1 (Pemmican Wars) is still quiet, still spends a lot of time with earbuds in, listening to her music, but she's becoming less isolated. She is befriended by a classmate named Micah. She gets involved with the school's Indigenous Student Leadership group, under the guidance of teachers Mr. Bee and Mx Francois. She plays in the snow with her foster family. And she smiles a bit. But powerful dreams and daydreams still take her into the Metis history of what is currently called Canada. This time, her dream episodes are set in 1869-70, when political machinations in Canada focused on pushing Indigenous and Metis people further and further west. Metis leader Louis Riel is a central figure in the dream events Echo experiences. 

The first Echo book established that Echo is in foster care because her mother is in some sort of facility (mental health care? halfway house?). We can guess that historical or intergenerational trauma may be affecting the family. Echo's dreaming translates facts she learns in class into stories of her Metis ancestors. More than once, Echo wakes with tears streaming down her face. She feels the impact of historical events viscerally, (re)living hopeful and joyous moments as well as the pain of betrayal and shattered hopes, displacements, departures, and violence witnessed.  

Though it's not the story's only "message," teachers and others who work with young people need to be mindful that children and their family members may be affected in the present by what happened during earlier stages of settler-colonization. Intergenerational trauma may not be easily recognizable, but it's real. It can be a factor in depression, loneliness, child neglect, and other problems that are generally considered mental health issues, and the effects of those are communicated from generation to generation through actions and beliefs.

The more time I spend with this book, the more I appreciate the author's and the illustrator's & colorist's craft:

• Character development. Echo's teachers, Mr. Bee and Mx Francois, are believable and rounded-out, though Mx Francois (pronouns they, them, their/s) hasn't yet had as much to say as Mr. Bee has. Mr. Bee, for example, stands in front of a classroom of benignly disengaged students and talks about what he loves: history. Notice how he seems to just assume his dozing, note-passing students are getting what they need from the information he's sharing. 
• Detail in the graphics. Take time to read the screen on Echo's mp3 player. Notice the subtly pleased looks on the faces of the two teachers as they watch Echo and the other students talking together after the Indigenous Leadership bake sale. And spend a moment with the panel that shows the exhilaration Echo and her friend feel when they believe, briefly, that Louis Riel's efforts have succeeded -- wow!    
• Things that pique interest: Such as -- Echo's foster mom -- what's her story? She has a houseful, including a child with special physical needs (seen in Pemmican Wars). Yet she treats Echo with great concern and respect, and when Echo seeks her out after a very bad dream, she seems surprised but her from-the-heart response is perfect. 
• The back matter. A detailed Red River Resistance timeline and the Metis List of Rights from 1870 helped me better understand Mr. Bee's lectures and Echo's dreams. Both were essential, in fact.

A particular strength of the Echo books is that so far, Katherena Vermette has not had Echo interact directly with real historical figures in her dreams. Her relationships of the past are with people about her age, who seem to be her guides (Marie in Pemmican Wars, Benjamin in Red River Resistance.) I hope that trend continues. It's much more effective, in my opinion, to have her be primarily an observer, than to imagine fake dialogue between a 21st century middle schooler and someone such as Louis Riel.

Something to watch for: Volume 3 of A Girl Called Echo is due out in February 2020!

Not Recommended: Elisha Cooper's RIVER

River
Written by Elisha Cooper
Published in 2019
Publisher: Scholastic
Reviewer: Debbie Reese
Status: Not Recommended




I'll begin with the book's description, from Scholastic:

A breathtaking adventure as a traveler and her canoe begin their trek down the Hudson River. In a mountain lake, the canoe gently enters the water's edge, paddling toward the river. The nautical journey begins. 

'She is alone, far from home. Three hundred miles stretch in front of her. A faraway destination, a wild plan. And the question: can she do this? 

In Cooper's flowing prose and stunning watercolor scenes, readers can follow a traveler's trek down the Hudson River as she and her canoe explore the wildlife, flora and fauna, and urban landscape at the river's edge. Through perilous weather and river rushes, the canoe and her captain survive and maneuver their way down the river back home. 

River is an outstanding introduction to seeing the world through the eyes of a young explorer and a great picture book for the STEAM curriculum. Maps and information about the Hudson River and famous landmarks are included in the back of the book.

My thoughts on River began as a Twitter thread I did on December 9, 2019 about Elisha Cooper's "A Note on the Hudson River" in the closing pages of River:

Notes can help a teacher, tremendously.

But when the note uses past tense words to talk about Native peoples... that book loses so much potential. And when that author fails to include Native peoples in the pages of the book itself, I am compelled to give it a Not Recommended label.

Stating the obvious: we (Indigenous Peoples) are here, in spite of all that was done to get rid of us. Children's books must not use past tense, exclusively--especially when a book has present day information! Past tense verbs affirm the idea that we no longer exist. They represent a significant flaw in a book that some think is worthy of the Caldecott Medal.

As Cooper's note demonstrates, he knows about several different Native Nations (scroll down to the tweet thread for details). Why couldn't Cooper have included some information about Native peoples in the journey the woman takes in her canoe? Cooper imagines a lot of people the woman interacts with on her canoe trip--but none of them are Native. On the endpapers where Cooper shows us maps of the states that the Hudson River passes through, he could have included "Homelands of the ___" and use his author's note to add that information to the maps. Any author or illustrator makes a lot of decisions as they create a book. Cooper has some knowledge and chose not to include it in the book. Why did he make that decision? Did it not occur to him? Did it not occur to his editors? Or, did they talk about it and decide not to use that information?

There is an expectation in children's literature that you should review the book in front of you, and not what you think the book could have been. Roger Sutton wrote about that recently at his blog (see Reviewing the book thats in front of your face). To use Roger's words, I'm committing a "cardinal sin" for questioning Cooper's omissions. His choice of words to describe that act is worth noting because it is rooted in a religion (Christianity) that was, and is, destructive to other religions and cultures. Regular readers of my work know that I've committed that "sin" a lot when I review books. Not asking questions about what is left out means letting the status quo continue as the status quo.

And of course, I won't stop asking questions!

And I hope you join me in asking them, too. River is published by Scholastic--the publisher who does book fairs in schools. You probably remember buying Scholastic books when you were a kid! They're a powerful company in schools. They shape what kids know. They can do better! #StepUpScholastic is an action to pressure them to do better.

I imagine some people saying, as they read my critique of River, that I should be grateful that Cooper included Native peoples in his note. I am, but, limiting his references to past tense is a selective inclusion that is insufficient when the book is set in the present day.

Before moving on to the Twitter thread (which has been slightly edited), I'll say again: I do not recommend River by Elisha Cooper.

****

Hey, Editor (at @Scholastic) of Alisha Cooper's RIVER:

She He used past tense verbs about Native peoples in his book about the Hudson:

It was called Cahohatatea ("The River") by the Iroquois who canoed it...

You do know that the peoples of the Haudenosaunee Nations are still here, right? So... why past tense?

You repeated the past tense error when you wrote parenthetically that

(Mohicans called it Huhheakantuck, or "The River that Flows Both Ways"). 

Did you talk to anybody at the Stockbridge-Munsee Community of Mohican Indians?

Your past tense tells us one of two things.

First, past tense when referring to Native peoples affirms the idea that Native peoples do not exist, today. Of course, that is an error. Second, if we assume that you think readers know that we are still here, then, you're telling readers that these nations no longer use those words.

If they don't, can you offer us evidence that you talked to someone who told you not to use those Native languages? Cooper's THE RIVER is getting lot of praise. You know... white woman going on a canoe trip alone... Whiteness loves that sort of thing. So, I'm not surprised it is getting praised.

BUT, COME ON, @Scholastic! What's with that Author's Note?! 

Note: Cooper’s first name is Elisha, not Alicia. And Cooper is he, not she. My apologies for that error. 

And a note to folks at Kirkus, School Library Journal, Horn Book, and ALA Booklist: if you have an in-house style or review guide, add something about verb tense! You have a lot of power to increase knowledge about this.

Not Recommended: CODE WORD COURAGE by Kirby Larson

Code Word Courage
Written by Kirby Larson
Published in 2018
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Reviewer: Debbie Reese
Status: Not Recommended

****

In 2018, a reader wrote to ask me about Kirby Larson's Code Word Courage. Here's the description:

Billie has lived with her great-aunt ever since her mom passed away and her dad left. Billie's big brother, Leo, is about to leave, too, for the warfront. But first, she gets one more weekend with him at the ranch.

Billie's surprised when Leo brings home a fellow Marine from boot camp, Denny. She has so much to ask Leo -- about losing her best friend and trying to find their father -- but Denny, who is Navajo, or Diné, comes with something special: a gorgeous, but injured, stray dog. As Billie cares for the dog, whom they name Bear, she and Bear grow deeply attached to each other.

Soon enough, it's time for Leo and Denny, a Navajo Code Talker, to ship out. Billie does her part for the war effort, but she worries whether Leo and Denny will make it home, whether she'll find a new friend, and if her father will ever come back. Can Bear help Billie -- and Denny -- find what's most important?

A powerful tale about unsung heroism on the WWII battlefield and the home front.

In May (of 2019), I saw Code Word Courage on the International Literacy Association's "Teachers' Choices 2019 Reading List" of books. Books on it are described as being "exceptional for curriculum use." That means that teachers are being encouraged to use the book to teach children. What do they learn from Larson's book?

Code Word Courage is a story about a White girl named Billie, a dog named Bear, and a Diné (Navajo) man named Denny Begay (and Denny's friend, Jesse, who is also a Code Talker).

The author, Kirby Larson, is White.

What we have in Code Word Courage is a White woman of the present day (Larson), creating dialogue, thoughts, emotions and actions of Native men who were born on the Navajo reservation in about 1926.

That is a difficult task.

In her Author's note, Larson writes:

Though I had tremendous input from people like Dr. Roy Hawthorne, one of the Navajo Code Talkers, and Michael Smith, son of Code Talker Samuel "Jesse" Smith, Sr., it is possible that I have made some mistakes in relating this story. I beg forgiveness in advance.

She says in that note, that it is possible she has made some mistakes and she begs forgiveness if those mistakes are there. Sounds good, but that disclaimer doesn't work for teachers in a classroom who don't know the mistakes are there. And if those mistakes are there, she's asking teachers--and students--to forgive her for making them. She wants them to feel bad for her--not for the people who are misrepresented by her errors.

In her Acknowledgements, Larson writes that she asked Michael Smith to read the parts about Denny. She said that she's

"so grateful for his guidance, corrections, and encouragement. In honor of his kindness, and with his permission, I have named one of the characters in this book after his father." 

See "corrections" in that first sentence? Michael Smith told her some things she had written were in need of correction. We can assume that she made those corrections, but she didn't say something like 'I made every correction he asked for' -- so, we don't know for sure. Instead, she tells us that she named a character after his father. What is the impact of that naming, on him? Is it something he feels good about? Maybe. But maybe not--and if he doesn't like what she did--is his dad's name in the book causing him to be quiet about problems that didn't get corrected?

I know--that's a lot of speculation on my part but I find it unsettling.

In the story Larson tells, we learn that Denny spent his early years with his family and then went to boarding school when he was eight. In chapter 7, we read his thoughts about "customs" his people did "after the Long Walk."

This is the text on page 49 (the first page of chapter 7):

"His mother had awakened him before dawn since he could remember, sometimes throwing him in winter's first snow to toughen him up, sometimes urging him to run east as far and as fast as he could. His grandmother said these customs started after the Long Walk, when so many People perished. Every Diné mother wanted her children strong enough to survive should such an atrocity ever happen again." 

Through Denny, Larson is telling readers that an event that took place in 1864 led the Navajo people to create two "customs" so they would be able to survive "atrocity" if it happened again. The two "customs", she says, are 1) throwing a child in winter's first snow to toughen them up, and 2) running east as far and as fast as they can.

Fact: tribal nations have cultural ways and traditions going back centuries. We have words--in our languages--for things we do. White writers (especially anthropologists) use "custom" for some of these things. Sometimes, Native scholars and writers use that word, too. So, presumably Larson is using "custom" because that is what she read in her sources.

Larson tells us that one of her sources is Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir by One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII by Chester Nez, with Judith Schiess Avila. In that book, Nez wrote about his childhood. In that book, Nez writes (Kindle location 969):

Grandma told us about her childhood. My eyes drifted close. It had been a long day. In less than a month, school would resume for me, Coolidge, and Dora. I wished that I could stay home and spend the winter with my family. As I drifted to sleep, I pictured snow, deep around the hogan. When I was very young, sometimes my brothers and I stripped naked in the snow, and Father rolled us in a snowbank. This Navajo tradition toughed us children against winter cold. 

I highlighted those last two sentences. Remember, Larson tells us that children were "thrown" into the snow. Nez says they were rolled in a snowbank. He also says it was done to toughen them against winter cold. No mention of anything to do with the Long Walk. Nez talks about directions (east, especially) several times in his book, but none of those instances have anything to do with the Long Walk.

I think the information Larson presented in chapter 7 is incorrect. It will, however, be the sort of thing that students will "learn" as they read this book--especially given that the International Literacy Association is encouraging use of the book in schools.

There are other problems in the book. I did a Twitter thread on May 11, 2019, as I read Larson's book. I'm pasting it below, for your reference. In short, I do not recommend Code Word Courage.

****

Twitter Thread by Debbie Reese

May 11, 2019

Been unable to get to CODE WORD COURAGE by Kirby Larson for too long. It is top of the stack today. 

One of the resources I'll use as I read it is Laura Tohe's CODE TALKER STORIES. Tohe is Diné. (Kirby Larson is not.)

I'm on page 32 of Larson's book. I have many post it notes in the book already but am pausing on page 32 because of the way the Diné (Navajo) character's identity is presented in the book. "Big-Water Clan" and "Red-Cheek-People Clan." It is the hyphens that give me pause.

One reason I'm reading CODE WORD COURAGE today is because it is on the International Literacy Association's "Teachers Choices" book list.

Re Larson's use of hyphens, I don't see them used in Tohe's book or in Jennifer Denetdale's RECLAIMING DINÉ HISTORY, where she writes that she "was born for 'Áshiihí (Salt People).

I wonder why they're in Larson's book? An editor's decision, maybe?

Finished rdg CODE WORD COURAGE by Kirby Larson. Now, adding my notes/thoughts to this thread.

On page 13, we meet Denny Begay, the Diné (Navajo) character. He's been at boot camp with a white guy named Leo. They're on their way to see Leo's aunt and sister.

The book is arranged (mostly) in alternating chapters. Chapter 1 is "Billie" (Leo's sister) and chapter 2 is "Denny" and so on thru the rest of the book.

Leo and Denny are hitchhiking but cars pass them by. Leo is surprised because that hasn't happened to him before. We're reading Denny's thoughts. He's surprised Leo doesn't realize that he (Denny)--an Indian--is the reason people are not picking them up.

He thinks abt being taken to boarding school when when he was 8, where the principal would wash his mouth w soap when he spoke Navajo.

Denny hears a sound that Leo can't hear. "All those years of watching his mother's sheep had trained him to recognize the sound of an injured animal" (p. 14).

CODE WORD COURAGE is one bk in Larson's series of dog stories. The sound Denny hears is a dog.

What we have in these chapters about Denny is Larson imagining his thoughts and feelings. In short: a white woman of the present day is imagining the words, thoughts and feelings of a Diné man of the 1940s.

In her Acknowledgements, Larson writes that Michael Smith, son of Code Talker Samuel Jesse Smith, "read the Denny portions of this book." He gave her "guidance, corrections, and encouragement."

To "honor his kindness, and with his permission," she named a character after his father. That character is with Denny in the chapters where Denny is learning the code and then on a ship and finally, on shore at Iwo Jima.

Jesse and Denny both have corn pollen with them. Jesse uses his and says Diné prayers; Denny does not.

Those parts (use of the corn pollen, words spoken) make me uneasy. Are they accurate? Did Michael Smith say anything about that being in the bk?

My personal and professional preference is that content specific to a Native peoples' spiritual ways NOT be in a bk written by someone who is not of that tribal nation.

Last yr I thought that what Roanhorse had in TRAIL OF LIGHTNING was ok because she had a Diné reader.

And so, I recommended the book. I came to regret that recommendation, as I've written, here. Please follow that link. Many Diné writers feel that Roanhorse appropriated their ways.

And they feel that she mis-used those ways, too. For your convenience, here's a letter they wrote about her and her book: Trail of Lightning is an appropriation of Diné cultural beliefs.

I wonder how they'd feel about what Larson has done? She says Michael Smith guided her. Roanhorse had a Navajo reader, too. It didn't matter. It is an example of disagreements within a specific group.

My position is to protect religious ways from being exploited.

I think Larson is on slippery ground with those parts of her book. Jesse's praying (with corn pollen) could have been included without any of those details.

As noted in tweet 8, Denny finds a dog. In its eyes, Denny sees the "familiar pain of rejection." He thinks they have rejection in common and "In eighteen years, the first time he'd felt accepted was at boot camp" (p. 15) where everyone was treated like crap.

That "eighteen years" is a problem for me. He lived at home until he was eight, remember? So... did he feel rejection when living at home as a child? (Answer is, no.) That "eighteen years" is something an editor should have caught.

Something passes between the dog and Denny as they look at each other. I'm noting that moment because later in the story when Denny is at Iwo Jima, the dog seems to appear to him.

I haven't read Larson's other dog bks. Is that a theme in them (a special relationship between a person and a dog, and then the dog appearing in a spiritual way, later)?

Once they get to Leo's house and are eating dinner, Denny tells Billie that his dad's favorite author was Jules Verne. That's possible but it stuck out to me, especially when later, Denny thinks about a John Wayne movie. To many Native ppl, John Wayne gets a thumbs down.

Denny says that "Uncle Sam put all us Navajos in the Marines" (p. 32). I don't think that is accurate. Thousands of Navajos enlisted. I doubt every one of them was put in the Marines.

How would Denny have that information? He just got out of boot camp.

On page 49, Denny is remembering his mother waking him before dawn, sometimes throwing him in the snow "to toughen him up" and sometimes telling him to run east as fast and as far as he could. His grandmother said they started doing these "customs" after the Long Walk.

Getting up and facing east every morning, and running is something he still does. It is habit.

That feels to me like a consistency error. He probably did that before boarding school but once there, could he have done that running east? Doubtful.

And I'd like to know Larson's source for that "custom." Why run east, fast? To get away from the soldiers who were forcing the Navajos on that Long Walk? Something feels off about "east" and these "customs" after the Long Walk.

On p. 68 Denny reaches into the buckskin bag he wears around his neck (on p. 33 when Billie saw it, he could tell she wondered what was inside; what he kept in it was personal/private but that he could tell her a little--that it has "corn pollen and tokens") and gives her a turquoise stone as a way of thanking her for being so nice to him while he was visiting them.

Billie wonders if it is magic and can grant wishes.

I wonder how kids are interpreting that? There's no check on that idea on the page (or elsewhere).

On p 103, Denny is on duty, in a room where there will be a "little test" of the code, which is in development.

The way he and the other 18 Diné men reply to the Lieutenant reminds him of boarding school where people "could see only skin color."

That's a bit slippery, too. The boarding schools weren't about the color of Native people's skin. They were about their status as tribal members/citizens of sovereign nations. The schools were a govt assimilation program to undermine Native nationhood status.

Denny remembers getting to the school and the matron examining his long hair for lice three times. She didn't find any but cut his hair anyway.

I don't think that's accurate. Hair was cut, no matter what. The way Larson writes that part suggests that if a person had long hair and no lice, they could keep their hair long. That did not happen. Hair was cut, period.

There's a Mexican American family in Larson's bk, too. The father works for Billie's aunt, managing her ranch. The boy, Tito, is in Billie's class at school. They become friends. The bully in the story picks on Tito a lot.

The bully picks on Billie, too, but the taunts at Tito are because of his identity. At Valentines Day the class makes heart cards to send to the hospital at Camp Pendleton. Tito writes a message in Spanish.

The bully tells their teacher that the cards are "going to Americans" and "should be in American." The teacher tells him "you mean English" and then realizes why the bully is asking the question.

It is good that she's not racist like the bully, but her pushback on him is not ok. She talks abt a newsreel that had "white faces, brown faces, black faces. Even the faces of men of Japanese heritage." (p. 162).

She pats her heart and says "It reminded me that, here in America, we may all come from different places" (p. 162).

No. That sounds like the "we are all immigrants" thinking that, in essence, erases Indigenous people.

Several times, Billie refers to things that Tito's family makes, like tamales. The references to food are superficial decorative in nature. And the references to "home made tortillas" are odd. The story is set in 1944. Were there factory-made tortillas then?

Some of the things I'm pointing out might seem picky, but if you're of the people whose ways are being used by Larson in ways that don't jibe with you and what you know, they are not small problems.

On page 168 is a chapter for the dog. Oh! I should have said earlier. His name is Bear. In this chapter, Larson imagines Bear's thinking. It is nighttime and he's uneasy. He feels like he is being called. He paces. "Soon, he must answer that call."

Immediately following that line is a Denny chapter, dated Feb 19, 1945. He's heading to Iwo Jima. Skipping past some Billie chapters, there's another Denny chapter, dated Feb 19 to Feb 22. That's when he imagines Bear is with him.

And Bear, as Larson told us in the Bear chapter, feels that he is being called. Way back in the early part of this thread, I noted that when Bear and Denny first made eye-contact, Larson wrote that some thing passed between them.

I think we're supposed to feel the love of a dog/human relationship. Maybe that's what this whole WWII Dogs series is about, but given Billie's wonderings abt magic (the turquoise stone), how are kid-readers making sense of all this?

CODE WORD COURAGE ends somewhat abruptly. There's some chapters near the end abt Tito getting hurt and rescued, with Bear playing a role in that. But then it leaps ahead about 30 years. Denny is living in a hogan on the reservation. Billie (now a woman in her 40s) visits him.

They sit to have coffee; she pulls a book from her bag: NAVAJO CODE TALKERS. He hadn't talked with the author but some of his friends had. Billie asks if this is his story, too. He says yes.

She says "When you were little, they tried to prevent you from speaking Navajo, and then the language ends up winning the war for us." He says he wouldn't say that. She wants to know what he would say...

Denny pats his pouch. The last words on page 233 are:

"The Diné custom was to tell stories during the winter, when snow blanketed the ground. But Denny decided today he could make an exception. For Billie."

Indigenous people tell stories at certain times of the year. But I think that is certain kinds of stories, not all stories.

In this ending (created by a White woman), a Diné man is going to break his peoples custom to tell a White woman a story that we're supposed to believe should not be told till winter?

I really don't like White people creating stories where their Indigenous characters break traditional teachings.

Conclusion, now that I'm finished reading and thinking about Kirby Larson's CODE WORD COURAGE? When I pull these thoughts into a review on American Indians in Children's Literature, it will have a NOT RECOMMENDED tag.

Not Recommended: STONE RIVER CROSSING by Tim Tingle

In the Acknowledgements of Stone River Crossing, Tim Tingle thanks me as a friend and colleague "in the drive to educate" and it is with that drive that I offer this critique of his book.

Stone River Crossing
Published in 2019 by Lee and Low
Reviewed by Debbie Reese
Status: Not recommended

****

As I've said before about Tim's books, it is important--crucial, actually--that teachers take note that he emphasizes the sovereign nation status of the people in the stories he creates. He does that with Stone River Crossing, too. The time and location of the story are the first words we see after the title of chapter 1. Those words:

1808, City of Bok Chitto, Choctaw Nation

The story opens with a Choctaw family. A Choctaw girl, specifically, named Martha Tom. There's a wedding planned for that day and her mom sends her out to pick blackberries [Note on Dec 16: I typed "blueberries" in the review and have since corrected that error]. All the blackberries on their side of the river are gone, so, she crosses the river. On the other side is a plantation. There are many berries there, because:

No one ever picks berries on that side of the river. They're too busy picking cotton, and the guards never let the slave workers get close to the river.

She goes on picking and eating berries and gets lost. She remembers her mother's warnings not to play by the river:

The plantation guards will capture you. They will make you a slave, just like the field workers. 

Reading "slave workers" and "field workers" stopped me. Those words reminded me of news articles in 2015 about a McGraw Hill textbook that used the word "workers" as follows:

The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations.

An African American parent, Roni Dean-Burren, posted a screenshot of her text exchange with her 9th grade son, over that passage in his textbook. You can see their texts on Instagram. McGraw Hill subsequently issued a statement that said, in part:

"...we conducted a close review of the content and agree that our language in that caption did not adequately convey that Africans were both forced into migration and to labor against their will as slaves."

"Workers" or variations of it appear several times in Stone River Crossing. Some examples:

• The church on the plantation is "the field workers' church"
• "Field workers" toss cotton bolls into their shoulder bags
• "House servants" greet Choctaw visitors
• "Well dressed household workers" tie Choctaw ponies to a railing

And, the Choctaw girl who is enslaved in the home of a plantation owner is referred to as a "household worker" by her father, Hattak Chula.

My question is: why is the word "worker" used so much in this book? Is it an effort not to use "slave"? There's been a lot of writing in recent years about that word. Instead of "slave" people are asked to use "enslaved" person/man/woman/child so that people are not objectified and so that the institution of slavery is seen as something that people did to other people.

To work on this review, I listened to a Teaching Tolerance podcast, Teaching Slavery Through Children's Literature. Dr. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas was the guest. There's a lot of hard thinking going on, about how to--and how not to--include slavery and enslaved peoples in children's books! It is a very complex conversation.

As I think about that conversation and the words used in Stone River Crossing, I wonder if Tingle and his editor were having those hard conversations and chose to use workers to avoid objectifying the Black characters in this story? Of course, intent doesn't matter. And, in fact, the word slave appears 52 times (I have a Kindle copy of the book).

What matters is the impact on the reader, and I think that "worker" is like the problem in the McGraw Hill textbook. Stone River Crossing, then, doesn't work.

I'm still thinking--hard--about this! We are in a moment of that "drive to educate" that Tim said in his acknowledgment. I'll be back if/when I've done more reading and have more to say. And--I'm not sure what I've said makes any sense! That's the complexity of the topic of writing about slavery.