CCBC Statistics for 2014: Books by/about American Indians

Today (Feb 18, 2015), the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, released statistics for books they received in 2014. For AICL, I focus on data specific to American Indians.

Important to note!

This is raw data and does not address quality of books. It also does not represent all books in any given year that have Native characters or content. A good example is Little House on the Prairie. In 2010, that book was reissued with colorized images inside. It has a Native character and a great deal of Native content, but I doubt that its publisher sent it to CCBC as a "book about American Indians." And even if they had, CCBC staff may have determined the character and content were not significant enough for it to be listed as a book about American Indians.

I am very glad to have CCBC's data each year. There is much to do with it. For now, here's the data, from 2002 through 2014. Once I have the book list for 2014, I'll do some analysis similar to what I did in 2013.

Some things I want to know: Who are the authors/illustrators of those 17 books written or illustrated by American Indians? In past years, a single author (Joseph Bruchac) Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?


Still, last year the number was 18, and this year it is 17. That is significant. It is the only two-year-period in which we see consistency, and it is also the highest number(s) overall. Numbers for next year will be interesting. Will we stay up at that number? Or will it skew down again?

It is also important to note that, for 2013 and 2014, we see that approximately half the books CCBC received were written or illustrated by Native people. I like that!

And of course, the numbers for 2002 and 2003 stick out (74 and 95, respectively). I need to find that list and see if I can figure out why they were so high then.

Please share your observations, calculations, etc.

Update, 3:42, Feb 18, 2015

CCBC tweeted out a chart that I want to share here, too. The chart, as you see, covers the various groups for whom CCBC keeps data. This is an especially helpful chart. Such charts should show growth over time. That is clearly not the case and is a strong indicator of work that must be done.

Year 2014 at American Indians in Children's Literature

I launched American Indians in Children's Literature in 2006. This is the first time I'm doing a recap of any given year. I started it in 2014, thinking I could post it in time for the end of 2014/start of 2015 when everyone is doing year end reflections, but it took far longer than I anticipated. I hope you enjoy it. It isn't comprehensive. I did over 100 posts in 2014. Here are some high and low points that stood out to me.

I always welcome your comments and emails. I make typos--and am always grateful to those of you who write to tell me about them. I fix 'em, thanks to you!

January

Travers in the Indian jewelry she wore all the time

Saving Mr. Banks came out in theaters. Reading a response to the movie prompted me to write Travers (author of Mary Poppins): "I lived with the Indians..." Do read that post! From the background on Travers to the side-by-side comparisons I did of the first edition and the revised edition without the racist images and text... Well... lots of fascinating info!

Always looking for young adult books set in the present day, and when I find them, hoping they'll be good... Among its many problems, Liz Fichera has Native characters being saved by white ones. Not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely a story line that we see far too often.  Hooked is on my not recommended list. It got a thumbs down, too, from Naomi Bishop, of the American Indian Library Association.

Brian Floca replied to my review of Locomotive. That post was one of AICL's most-read pages for 2014.

Though Mary Pope Osborne's Magic Tree House series is much-loved, I found many problems with Thanksgiving on Thursday. She found a new way to misrepresent Squanto in her book (it was published in 2002, but AICL looks at old and new books).

In other media, I learned about murals at post offices. It was interesting to see the differences in murals of Native peoples done by Native artists versus the stereotypical ones done by white artists.

My post about John Green's use of sarcasm regarding Native peoples generated a lot of discussion in the comments to it but also on Facebook. This sarcasm is in The Fault in Our Stars. 

I read--and recommended--The Giant Bear: An Inuit Folktale. It has a teacher's guide, too! Check it out.

I was thrilled to learn that Eric Gansworth's If I Ever Get Out of Here was chosen as one of YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults for 2014.

And, the American Indian Library Association announced the winners of its Youth Literature awards!

February

I was nervous about being interviewed for a CNN story about young adult literature. As I thought about that interview, I wrote about several books for young adults, noting that librarians and teachers must not let Alexie's young adult novel be "the single story" they read/share about Native peoples.

Tim Tingle's How I Became a Ghost and Eric Gansworth's If I Ever Get Out of Here were selected for discussion at CCBC-Net. The discussion was quite intense! The post includes a link to CCBC-Net. (By the way, CCBC won't be hosting their listserv anymore. I'll miss it.) If you're in a bookstore, these are the covers of their books:

I was pleased to see Laurie Halse Anderson's treatment of Native content in her The Impossible Knife of Memory. 

March 

In my review of Tim Tingle's How I Became a Ghost, I took special delight in his use of "Choctaw Nation" in the chapter heading for his opening chapter.

I had a rather long back-and-forth with Rosanne Parry over problems I found in her Written In Stone. I grew weary of that back-and-forth. It is unfinished. In the summary (above) for January, I noted how white characters save Native ones in Hooked. Parry is a white writer with good intentions, but has blinders to issues in how she went about her story. She asked me for input but then rebutted that input. It is similar to what Lynn Reid Banks did, and what Ann Rinaldi did (invite but reject input from Native scholar).

I did an analysis of books by/about American Indians sent to the Cooperative Center for Children's Books at Wisconsin in 2013. No surprise to see that most books by major publishers were by not-Native writers and that they had a lot of stereotyping and errors, while books by small publishers were by Native writers, and they were definitely far better in quality!

With so much interest in Rush Limbaugh's books for children, I decided I best take a look at the first one. It was just like listening to his show. No surprise there, but important to list its problems, especially since he went on to be named author of the year by the Children's Book Council.

It was a year in which Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington pro football team, preyed on tribes as he looked for Native people to endorse his use of a racist name for his team. My post on March 25 was about the foundation he set up for that preying activity.

April

For over a hundred years, Native people have spoken against misrepresentations of Native people. These things matter. Our youth struggle in school. They're inundated with misrepresentations in their books and other places, too, like with mascots. I looked at some of the data on graduation rates and linked it to stereotyping.

In February, I wrote about being interviewed by CNN. The story was uploaded in April (if the link to he CNN page doesn't work, send me an email and I'll send you a pdf).

I am thrilled to be part of an article that pointed to the work of excellent writers like Matt de la Pena, Sharon Draper, Walter Dean Myers, Cindy Pon, Malinda Lo, Sherman Alexie, Eric Gansworth, Cynthia Leitich Smith, and Debby Dahl Edwardson, and, a key person in the book publishing world, Cheryl Klein. Do read the article.




I read--and loved--Chukfi Rabbit's Big, Bad Bellyache by Greg Rodgers. He incorporated Choctaw words into the story. As you scroll down to December, you'll see the cover of Greg's book, and a photo of him, too. Sadly, he passed away in December.

April marks the month when the We Need Diverse Books campaign was taking form. It isn't the first time that a group of people took action to decenter the whiteness of literature. This time--with the demographic make-up of the US about to shift from white majority--could mean whiteness does, in fact, get decentered. My first post about the campaign was uploaded on April 28.

May

In the middle of May I participated in a twitter chat about the We Need Diverse Books campaign. I advocated for books by Native writers and was (as usual) challenged for that advocacy. The outcome was a post about that advocacy that included a photo gallery of Native writers and illustrators who have done books for children or young adults. I later turned that post into a page that is now in my menu bar above (beneath AICL's logo) that I am steadily adding to periodically.

I read a delightful picture book: Hungry Johnny by Cheryl Minnema and Wesley Ballinger! Though it features Ojibwe people, it is a lot like Pueblo gatherings, where elders take center stage.

And, another delightful picture book I read in May is Sweetest Kulu by Celina Kalluk and Alexandria Neonakis.

And yet another delight that month was Arigon Starr's Super Indian comic!

One of the many dreadful books I read in 2014 is Julia Mary Gibson's Copper Magic. The stereotypical mystical Indian theme is front and center in this young adult novel, and, well, it is yet another awful book from a major publisher! It was also disheartening to see stereotypes in the popular Where's Waldo series.

June

First week of June, I wrote about the We Need Diverse Books campaign. I support what they're doing. The WNDB group did a presentation at Book Expo on May 31. My post was a compilation of tweets and photos coming from BEA.

I did an in-depth analysis of Katherine Kirkpatrick's Between Two Worlds. Like too many books from major publishers, it is replete with errors and stereotypes about Native people. Rubbing noses? Sheesh!  It is a great example of the work ahead of the We Need Diverse Books campaign.

Stereotypes like those Kirkpatrick used are one problem. Another is ambiguity. Paul Goble's much-acclaimed The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses doesn't specify a tribe. There is no one-size-fits-all for Native nations.

In the middle of the month I read two outstanding books. Both are tribally specific, both are the work of Native people. I highly recommend them: Donald F. Montileaux's Tasunka: A Lakota Horse Legend and Arigon Starr's Annumpa Luma--Code Talker.  Also in the middle of the month, Beverly Slapin sent me her review of Joseph Bruchac's Killer of Enemies. It won the Young Adult award from the American Indian Library Association.

Towards the end of the month, I wrote up a review of a "Native American Zodiac" that was circulating widely. One rule of thumb that'll help you know if something is worthwhile is to ask "is this tribally specific." With this zodiac, the easy answer is no. Yet, it is hugely popular, so I hope you'll read the critique and share it with others.

July

The month kicked of with a wonderful look at Tim Tingle's remarks at the American Library Association's conference. He won the American Indian Library Association's Youth Literature Award for How I Became A Ghost and was there to receive his award.

In the middle of the month, I wrote a bit about E. B. White. Did you notice the Native content in Stuart Little? Take a look.

A librarian wrote to ask me about Gary Paulsen's Mr. Tucket. I hadn't read it before. Her request prompted me to read it. I did a chapter-by-chapter analysis. Though Paulsen was tribally specific, he drew heavily on stereotypes.

August

Earlier in the year, a person at the Library of Congress asked if I could recommend a Native mystery writer that they could have at the National Book Festival. I asked colleagues in my Native network of scholars and writers, and was pointed to the work of Cherokee writer, Sara Sue Hoklotubbe. At the end of the month, I wrote about her Sadie Walela series.

As I was recovering from a broken ankle, I didn't do much blogging at all, but I did read Hoklotubbe's books. I like them very much! I'm glad she was able to be at the National Book Festival. In the days following her reading, I thoroughly enjoyed the photos and stories she shared about the experience on her Facebook page.

September

A very high point for the month was reading--and loving--Dreaming in Indian: Contemporary Native American Voices. 

I was glad to see it getting lot of positive buzz from mainstream journals, too. School Library Journal listed it as Best Book 2014 in the Nonfiction category. It is a terrific example of what we need to see lots of so the publishing industry moves away from what we get from Goble, Paulsen, Kirkpatrick, Gibson, Parry, Limbaugh, Osborne...

Speaking of Goble, I wrote about him, asking Was Paul Goble adopted into the Yakima and Sioux tribes?

I put out a call for books for early readers. A learned that Jack Prelutsky's It's Thanksgiving had been redone in 2007, but that the stereotypical problems in the earlier book (published in 1982) were unchanged.

I read The Education of Little Tree. I knew it was deeply problematic, but didn't know just how bad it is. I was surprised at some of its content. Cherokee "mating dances"?! Reading that part, I shook my head. So much wrong with it, and yet, it circulates and sells, and sadly--informs readers and writers, too.

Maybe its power in misinforming people is evident in publication of books like Heather Sappenfield's The View From Who I Was. The author meant well--they always do--but the Native community is quite irate over what she did in her book. I did a careful read of it and shared it with her and her editor. Some changes were made as a result... Instead of "costume" she used "regalia" but those are easy changes and don't get at the foundational problems with the book.

There are problems in Bouwman's The Remarkable and Very True Story of Lucy and Snowcap (Two Lions, 2012) and Bow's Sorrow's Knot (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2013). Lots of writers love the "mystical" Indian. There's a lot of that in Nordgren's Anung's Journey (Light Messages Publishing, 2014),  too.

Looking back, it was a tough month. I also wrestled with Neal Shusterman over his Unwind series. He read my review and responded with a comment. Later in the year I wrote more about his books.

October 

High points first!

Carol Lindstrom's Girls Dance Boys Fiddle is terrific. Published in 2013, it is from a small press in Canada called Pemmican Publications.

From another small publisher, Native Northwest, we got the gorgeous and bilingual counting book, We All Count: A Book of Numbers by Julie Flett.

At the other end of the publishing continuum is Sebastian Robertson's picture book biography about his dad, Robbie Robertson. Way cool.

The low points are two picture books by big publishers that diss Native people. They are As An Oak Tree Grows by Brian Karas (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2014) and Thomas Jefferson: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Everything by Maira Kalman (Penguin, 2014).

Over in the UK, The Guardian worked with Seven Stories Press on a diversity initiative that includes Amazing Grace and Apache: Girl Warrior. Both stereotype Native people and ought not be on a list of diverse books.

In contrast to those low points is K. V. Flynn's On The Move. Flynn isn't Native but it is obvious he did his homework to write On The Move. His characters are from specific tribes and they're well developed, too.

I ended the month with a look at Virginia Stroud's Doesn't Fall Off His Horse. Published in 1994 by Dial Books, it is excellent and now available in ebook.

November

November is always a stressful month for two reasons. For several years now, the President of the US has designated it as a month dedicated to Native peoples. Because it is also the month that the US celebrates Thanksgiving, things get awfully skewed to a romantic narrative that misinforms and miseducates children about America and American Indians. It is also a month in which I'm asked to do guest posts and lectures.

In preparation for a television interview that would be televised later in the month on CUNY TV, I wrote up Some Thoughts about Native Americans and Thanksgiving. I pointed to some of my favorite books.

Here's info about the Twitter chat I did for We Need Diverse Books. It was storified by the WNDB team. WNDB team member Miranda Paul interviewed me over at Rate Your Story, which is a site designed to help writers and the WNDB team asked me to do a Tumblr post, which I titled Why I Support WNDB.

Beverly Slapin contributed two items: a great review of Kim Shuck's Rabbit Stories and with Kim, a satirical piece, How to Write a Dystopian Young Adult Novel (or short story) with Native Characters for Fun and Profit.

A perfect reference book for the month is David Treuer's Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask. Packed with solid info you can use to enrich your own ability to discern the good from the not-so-good (or just plain awful).

Treuer's book is one that I wish writers who incorporate or feature Native content would read. During a WNDB twitter chat on diversity, Francesca Lia Block's name came up. I tweeted the links to my posts on the problems in her books. To my surprise, she was online, too, and apologized. I was thrilled but then someone else suggested I read her Teen Spirit. I did, and its got problems, too. It seemed to me that her apology was kind of shallow, then. Maybe if she'd said, in her apology, that Teen Spirit had the same kinds of problems, the apology would be more meaningful. Maybe writers just do not criticize their own books. Ever. I'm trying to think of an example. If you have one, let me know!

A high point of the month was taping a segment for CUNY's Independent Sources. It aired around Thanksgiving. I love the images they prepared for it--using books I recommend--and the video itself is pretty good, too.

Two other high points: reading Cynthia Leitich Smith's Feral Curse and Roy Boney's We Speak In Secret. I highly recommend both.

And--big sigh--there was a lot of activity related to Peter Pan. It was on television as a life performance. I have two posts about it. "True Blood Brothers" includes a link to the earlier one.

December

Outside of trade books, there are those in basal series. I rarely see them, but should figure out how to do more about them. Starting in November, Native parents in Alaska started writing to me about four books in the McGraw Hill "Reading Wonders" series. Goodness! Some dreadful items there. The outcome of meetings with parents was that the superintendent decided to withdraw the four books.

Back in trade books, I read and do not recommend Nick Lake's There Will Be Lies or Neal Shusterman's Unwholly or Unsouled.  These are from major publishing houses with a lot of heft. A lot of problematic content, in other words, getting pushed out and added to the too-high-pile of misinformation about Native peoples.

On the plus side, I finished the month with reviews of Tim Tingle's House of Purple Cedar and Erika Wurth's Crazy Horse's Girlfriend. 

I highly recommend Tingle's book (Note from Debbie: Due to questions during 2021 regarding this author's claims to being Native, I am no longer recommending anything by Erika Wurth.) both of those books for young adults. And--a rare event on AICL--I recommended a nonfiction book for children. I need to do more on nonfiction! A Children's Guide to Arctic Birds is terrific.

Just before Christmas, the Native community across the country was shocked and saddened to learn that Choctaw writer, Greg Rodgers, had passed away.  His first picture book came out in 2014. A delightful story, we were looking forward to his career as a writer.

I looked over everything I'd read over the year and put together AICL's Best Books of 2014 list. It has 17 books on it. Most--but not all--are by Native writers.

As I post this recap of 2014, we're well into 2015. I'm grateful to those of you who read and share AICL's posts and glad for every comment I get. Keep sending me email! Your emails direct a lot of what I do here.

And remember! All the work I do is with young people in mind. I respect writers and the work they do, but the people closest to my heart are those who read your work. When it has problems, I'll note it because those finely crafted words writers give to children can inspire them, but they can also hurt them. And when those words are well done, I'll celebrate what you do. I'll share it with moms and their kids. Like my niece and her daughter. This is who we're all here for.

Do something dramatic! AICL's recap of ALA's Day of Diversity

Note: AICL is compiling links to reflections of the day. See the list at the bottom of this post.

Last week (Friday, January 30, 2015), I was at the Day of Diversity at the American Library Association's 2015 Midwinter Conference. This is my recap of the highlights (for me) of the day. I am glad I was invited. It provided me the opportunity to meet some terrific people I've known via social media for several years. A more personal reflection of the ALA's 2015 Midwinter Conference is forthcoming.

The keynote was delivered by former ALA President, Dr. Camila Alire. 

She spoke about being in college (grad school, maybe), working on a project in which she did content analyses of depictions of Mexican Americans in children's books. She came across Bad Boy, Good Boy by Marie Hall Ets. It was published in 1967 by Cromwell. Here's the cover:

In her talk, Alire listed some of the problems she saw in it: the father/husband is the stereotypical depiction of violent Mexican American men with machismo, and the mother learned the right way to cook only after she went to work as a housekeeper for a white family. Roberto doesn't speak English and gets in trouble. The heroes of the story are a white policeman and a white teacher. Learning English is important in Roberto becoming the good boy of the book's title. Alire analyzed Bad Boy, Good Boy using the Council on Interracial Books for Children's Ten Quick Ways to Analyze Children's Books for Racism and Bias. It failed on many points. 

Alire said that it is hard to find Bad Boy, Good Boy today. She said that it is important that we look for good books that accurately reflect the people being depicted, but that it is also important to talk about problematic books, too. She didn't name any present-day examples, but my colleagues have done similar analyses of Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner. It fails, too. 

Alire shared data from 2002 and 2013 compiled by the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin that shows there has been a decrease in the number of books by/about African/African Americans, American Indians, Asian Pacific/Asian Pacific Americans, and Latinos:

See the drop from 2002 to 2013 in the American Indian column? In 2002 there were 64. In 2013, the number was 34. Last year I looked at the 34 on the 2013 list. Focusing on those published in the United States, there were 14 books. Five of them had stereotypes and/or bias such that I cannot recommend them. My point is this: we can't look only at numbers. We have to open the books and look at the content, too. At AICL, I talk about the bad in terms of that content. Far too many people do not recognize problematic content. We have to do what Alire asked us to do: talk about the bad, too.

Alire pointed to resources people can use in their efforts to improve their skills in collection development. Among them is The Importance of Diversity in Library Programs and Material Collections for Children, edited by Jamie Naidoo. Written for the Association for Library Service to Children, it includes a link to American Indians in Children's Literature. In the Background section, Naidoo points to librarian Charlemae Rollins. In 1941, she wrote about stereotyping of African Americans in children's books. Back in the 1927, Native parents in Chicago wrote letters, objecting to the ways Native peoples were portrayed in textbooks. And all the way back in 1829, William Apes, a Pequot man raised by whites, wrote about being afraid of his own people. In A Son of the Forest, he wrote this:

[T]he great fear I entertained of my brethren was occasioned by the many stories I had heard of their cruelty toward the whites—how they were in the habit of killing and scalping men, women, and children. But the whites did not tell me that they were in a great majority of instances the aggressors—that they had imbrued their hands in the lifeblood of my brethren, driven them from their once peaceful and happy homes—that they introduced among them the fatal and exterminating diseases of civilized life. If the whites had told me how cruel they had been to the “poor Indian,” I should have apprehended as much harm from them.

These historical moments are important. After Alire's keynote, the first panel began their presentations. Leading them off was Violet Harris. The struggle, Harris noted, is not new. What is different is social media and its potential for effecting change. She pointed to the We Need Diverse Books campaign and to the articles Walter Dean Myers did for the New York Times. His Where Are the People of Color in Children's Books came out in March 15, 2014, but it was preceded by his "I Actually Thought We Would Revolutionize the Industry" which came out in 1986. 

In his 2014 article, Myers cited the CCBC statistics that Alire used in her chart above. In her remarks, Kathleen Horning of the Cooperative Children's Book Center told us that their phone has been ringing non-stop. Journalists and researchers who read the Myers article want more information. The data from CCBC tells us that, contrary to what a lot of people think, we are not in a post-racial society. She quoted her US Madison colleague, Bernice Durand, Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Climate, who said you need at least three people of color in any group to affect change. When she was in a position to make appointments to award committees, she followed Durand's advice.*

Jason Low spoke about some of the work that Lee and Low has been doing, in particular, pointing to the lack of diversity in movies and children's books. Here's a much-shared graphic they put together using CCBC data:

The panel was followed by a breakout session that I found disappointing. Much later, I realized that the breakouts were geared more towards the people in the audience who are new to all of this--those who are just starting out and want to make change in what they do in their libraries. 

Lunchtime was a powerful hour as Sara Farizan, Ellen Oh, and Cynthia Leitich Smith did a "Lightning Talk" about their work as writers, and Namrata Tripathi spoke about her work as an editor. What made the four talks so riveting was that the four women shared personal stories from their own lives that shape the work they do. 

Books are not mere entertainment. They inspire us, but they can hurt us, too, and we must speak about up more about problematic books. Pointing to problems can lead to change. 

I'm running out of steam right now, but don't want to close this off without saying a few things about Satia Orange's closing. A former director of ALA's Office for Literacy and Outreach Services, she moderated the last panel. I'm paraphrasing and wish I had a recording so that I don't misrepresent what she said. 

This is a dangerous time for black and brown children, she said. More than anyone, she called out the power structures that aren't with us in this struggle.* More of us have to step up. We have to challenge publishers and do more, like selling books in non-traditional places. She challenged the gathering to do something dramatic next week, and next month, for children of color. 

The Day of Diversity began with a request that we call people in rather than calling them out. I understand that it is important to assume the best of people, but being nice, in its way, lets the status quo continue unchallenged. 

Challenging the status quo is uncomfortable for me, and it is uncomfortable to those who I challenge. Most recently, David Arnold (author of Mosquitoland) blocked me from being able to see what he tweets because I pointed to his use of "warpaint" for his "part Cherokee" character. That book is getting starred reviews. Obviously people love it and see nothing wrong with its use of "warpaint." That sort of thing affirms misinformation about Cherokee people, and it is an affront to Cherokee children and their families who are weary of being misrepresented again and again and again. 

During the day, I spoke with Kathleen Horning about the work of the Council on Interracial Books for Children. She said she thinks they made a difference because they called people out. I think that is what Satia Orange is asking us to do, too. Speak up. Be dramatic. The lives of children of color matter. 

________

For more, see these personal and professional reflections. I'm adding others as I see them. Please let me know of ones you see, too. 

• Edi Campbell: Rap It Up
• Zetta Elliott: Power Surge
• Sarah Park Dahlen: ALSC Day of Diversity: Step It Up
• Janet Wong: How Will You Step It Up?
• Elizabeth Bluemle: Diversity: One Thing You Can Do Now
• Maya Gonzales: ALSC'S Day of Diversity: one woman's ritual
• Don Tate: Day of Diversity, Pop Top Stage, Winter Storm
• Kody Keplinger: Video Diary: Chicago + Day of Diversity
• Lessa Pelayo-Lozada: First Up on the Agenda: Let's Talk About Diversity
• Andrew Medlar: Day of Diversity @ #alamw15
• Lisa Nowlain: Diversity Matters @ #alamw15 
• Jason Low: ALA Midwinter Day of Diversity Recap and Reflections 
• Ellen Riordan: ALSC's Next Steps after Day of Diversity 
• Sujei Lugo: A Frank Remembrance of My ALA Midwinter Experience
• Crystal Brunell: Slice of Life

*Edited to reflect clarifications provided to me by KT Horning in comments (below) and others who were there.  

A Look at Setting in 2013 CCBC Data on Fiction by/about American Indians - US Publishers

On March 17, 2014 I published my analysis of 14 books on the Cooperative Center or Children's Books (CCBC). The set I analyzed are those published by publishers located in the United States. My findings?

• With one exception (Eric Gansworth's If I Ever Get Out of Here), the books major publishing houses put out are flawed in one way or another. 
• With one exception (a book I could not get), the books small publishers put out are ones that I can--and do--recommend. 

Today I am pointing to the time period for the books. In short, are they set in the past? Or are they set in the present?

My findings? Of the 13 books I looked at (remember there are 14 total but I could not get one, which means 13 for this look at time period):

When I looked at the set published by large publishers, I found:

• Books set in the present: 1
• Books set in the past: 5

When I looked at the set published by small publishers, I found:

• Books set in the present: 4
• Books set in the past: 2
• Books set in the future 1

Another win, in other words for small publishers, for giving us books that portray American Indians as people of the present day.

2013 CCBC Data on Fiction by/about American Indians - US Publishers

I studied the 2013 list of books received by the Cooperative Center for Children's Books (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that CCBC lists as being by/about American Indians/First Nations/Latin America.

CCBC is careful to note that the list means nothing about quality. It is just a tally of books they received. In total, the list they shared with me has 34 books on it. I am going to analyze the books on the list. I am grateful to CCBC for sending me the list, and I'm grateful to them for compiling this data every year. This is the first year I'm doing this analysis.

To start with, I am limiting my analysis of the list to works of fiction published by U.S. publishers, which means 13 books (I am excluding Little Red Riding Boots, which is on the CCBC list for its illustrator; the book itself has no cultural content specific to American Indians).

BIG FIVE PUBLISHERS*

The "Big Five" publishing houses and/or their imprints published four works of fiction. None of them are by Native writers.

I do not recommend Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper or Crazy Horse: Brave Warrior by Ann Hood because there is a great deal of stereotyping in both. From the way the Native characters behave to the way they speak... stereotyping. Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon and Schuster)

I do not recommend Salt: A Story of Friendship in a Time of War by Helen Frost because I find it problematic to look for Indian people, make friends with them, and report that they asked you to write a book about them. And then, that book turns out to be a not-plausible work of historical fiction where White people and Indian people, before and after intense war, were friends. Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Macmillan)

I do not recommend Written in Stone by Rosanne Parry, partly became she writes at length of "Chief Lelooska" and the Lelooska Foundation which perform and stereotype rather than educate, and, she sends her young readers to Lelooska, too. Though she taught children at the Quinault school, Parry's book echoes stereotype rather than reality. Publisher: Random House.

The fourth book is Bo at Ballard Creek by Kirkpatrick Hill. Set in a gold mining camp in Alaska, the author tells us it is from her memories of living in a mining camp when she was a child. At her site, she says "Gold rushes are inherently sexy, with lots of wild, death-defying activity, over-the-top characters, and some dazzling rags-to-riches stories." It fails in the same way that Locomotive did. It celebrates something that has a very dark side to it, with that dark side having a negative impact on Indigenous people. Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (Macmillan)

These writers meant well. Each one of them has written about their motivation for writing these books. Each one, however, approached the project from a well-intentioned, but ultimately flawed, desire to tell a Native story, from a Native perspective (the exception is Bo at Ballard Creek, which does not take a Native perspective). To varying degrees, they are the white person so enchanted by our spirit or culture, or so infuriated by how we and our Nations are treated historically and in literature, that they decided to write these stories. Many readers--reading from that same position--feel very moved or inspired by their motivation and their books. There are others, however, who do not feel that same inspiration. Some (like me) are often more than a little irked that we keep getting books by white writers who just recycle stereotypes and biased stories. It plays to the mainstream expectation of what Native peoples are supposed to be, but that expectation is so far from what Native and non-Native readers ought to get, especially in books for young people.

SMALLER PUBLISHERS

Nine works of fiction by smaller publishing houses are on the CCBC list for 2014. One is by a writer who is not Native; eight are by Native writers.

The one by a writer who is not Native is Rob Owen's Spy Boy, Cheyenne, and 96 Crayons. It is published by Pelican Press. I am not able to get a copy of it and can't say anything about it.

The other eight? I recommend them. They don't stereotype. As far as my research has determined, they don't err with cultural material.

Joseph Bruchac's Killer of Enemies is published by Tu Books of Lee and Low. It is a post apocalyptic story with a female protagonist named Lozen who is a descendent of a noted Chiricahua Apache woman. Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

Art Coulson's The Creator's Game: A Story of Baaga'adowe/Lacrosse, published by the Minnesota Historical Press, is about Travis, a present-day boy sixth-grade Ojibwe boy who is getting started as a lacrosse player.

Eric Gansworth If I Ever Get Out of Here is one of my all-time favorites. I highly recommend it. No stereotyping in it. No romanticizing of a Native identity or history in it, and no performance of a not-legit Native identity, either. Elsewhere on AICL I've written about it, so won't go on and on here. It is by Arthur A. Levine Books (an imprint of Scholastic).

Gary Robinson's Little Brother of War, published by 7th Generation, is about a present-day Choctaw boy who thinks he's not an athlete like his big brother who was killed in Iraq. At a Choctaw gathering he finds himself playing stickball (a traditional game known as Little Brother of War), at which he excels.

Tim Tingle's How I Became a Ghost is published by Road Runner Press. It is set on the Trail of Tears, but in Tingle's deft storytelling voice, the story is more about the humanity and perseverance of the Choctaw people than the tragedy of removal.

Tingle's Danny Blackgoat: Navajo Prisoner is published by 7th Generation. This is the only book of Tingle's in which he writes outside of his own people (Choctaw). Though his storytelling skills are present, it doesn't have the depth that his Choctaw stories do. Even so, it is far more commendable than Cooper, Hood, Frost, Parry, or Hill.

Richard Van Camp's Little You, published by Orca, is a delightful board book celebrating a child's birth and childhood. Coupled with art by Metis artist Julie Flett, this book is gorgeous.

Richard Wagamese's Him Standing, published by Orca, is not--in my view--meant for young adult readers who are at the younger end of that scale (the range of YA is 12-18). A very dark thriller, the protagonist in Wagamese's book is 20 and living with his girlfriend.


SOME INITIAL CONCLUSIONS

The comparison between the two sets of books is lopsided in terms of quality. Really lopsided. The problematic books from the Big Five are doing well in the marketplace, which is no surprise. They have the marketing force of a major publisher, and, the stories cater to mainstream expectations of what stories about Native people will be about, and that's too bad! How are we going to get that depiction off of center stage?

My answer is:

1) Reject those problematic books. Tell others what is wrong with them.

2) Buy and recommend books that provide readers with stories that accurately present Native characters and culture. Tell others about them.

Bottom line of my analysis? Of the 13 books that I was able to read, I recommend 8 of them.

On March 16th, 2014, The New York Times ran an opinion piece by former children's literature ambassador, Walter Dean Myers. Titled "Where are the People of Color in Children's Books?", Myers pointed to the CCBC data. Of the 3,200 children's books published in 2014, 93 were about black people. I'm curious about the 93 books. What genre? What quality?

In 2013, CCBC received 34 about American Indians. In the analysis above, I looked only at fiction by US publishers. I have not yet looked at fiction by Canadian publishers, and nonfiction by US or Canadian publishers. Here's the numerical breakdown of that:

Fiction - US publishers = 14
Fiction - Canadian publishers = 8
Nonfiction - US publishers = 7
Nonfiction - Canadian publishers = 3

In 2013, CCBC reports that:

5000 books were published
3200 of those 5000 were sent to CCBC
13 of them were works of fiction about American Indians/First Nations/Latin America

Of those 13 works of fiction, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) recommends eight. As a society, we need those eight works of fiction in every school and public library, and in every classroom. Buy them. Booktalk them. Promote them every chance you get.

We need to buy those eight works of fiction so that the publishers and editors who worked on them will be encouraged to seek out additional manuscripts by those writers.

We need to thank editors like Cheryl Klein who worked with Eric Gansworth on If I Ever Get Out of Here, and Jeanne Devlin who worked with Tim Tingle on How I Became A Ghost, and Stacy Whitman who worked with Joseph Bruchac on Killer of Enemies for the care they took in bringing those books to us.

We thank those individuals by buying the books. 

By buying more than one copy of the books.  

__________
*On April 10, 2016, I edited this post. Though Scholastic is a major publisher, it is not considered to be one of the Big Houses.

American Indians in Children's Literature--on Tumblr!

I've done few posts this month (February 2014) because I've been participating in a month-long discussion on CCBC-NET on multicultural literature and because I've been playing with Tumblr. The CCBC-NET discussion has traveled along familiar territory, with people assuming that my preference for literature by Native people means that I don't think non-Native people should be writing books about us, and assumptions that African Americans don't want people who aren't African American writing books about them either.

Though that perception is out there and gets circulated a lot, it can be quickly batted down if one pauses to think about some of the books I recommend: Debby Dahl Edwardson's My Name Is Not Easy. Debby is not Native. Joseph Bruchac's The Story of the Milky Way: A Cherokee Tale. Joe is not Cherokee.

That said, my preference is books by Native writers because when a parent or teacher or librarian recommends them, they can use present tense verbs in the recommendation. This will increase visibility of Native people as part of today's society. They could, for example, say "Tim Tingle is Choctaw. His book, How I Became A Ghost, is set on the Trail of Tears. Members of his family were on the Trail of Tears." And--they could say "The Choctaw Nation has a website, and so does Mr. Tingle. He's pretty cool... He's on Twitter, too!"

There have been some very eloquent posts to the CCBC-NET discussion that sought to bring clarity and context to it. If you're not currently a subscriber to CCBC-NET, you can join anytime and read the archived discussion.

Online, you can read what Cynthia Leitich Smith wrote about it at Cynsations. Her post, titled "Writing, Tonto & the Wise-Cracking Minority Sidekick Who Is the First to Die" is full of terrific information. Reading it, I was thrilled to learn that she's introduced a Native character in book 2 of her Feral trilogy. The first book is Feral Nights. It, and book two, Feral Curse, are getting bumped up on my reading list.

A few years ago when Tumblr started gaining traction, I created one for AICL but hadn't done much with it at all. I am taking a little time of late to develop it. It is a new thing for me, and because it is new and not very deep, I'm willing to play with the HTML code a bit. A bit. A tiny bit. This morning I added a date/time stamp and, hurray! It worked. Here's a screen capture of my latest post:

If you're on Tumblr and want to see what I'm doing, here's my page: debbiereese.tumblr.com. If I'm not doing something right over there, let me know!

Eric Gansworth and Tim Tingle's books selected for CCBC-NET discussion

Last year, two outstanding books by Native authors were published: Eric Gansworth's If I Ever Get Out of Here and Tim Tingle's How I Became A Ghost. 

This morning, my CCBC-NET digest started with an email from KT Horning saying that those two books will be discussed this month. That email made me do a happy dance. I'm thrilled! If you're not subscribed to CCBC-NET, here's the link to do so: CCBC-NET.

AICL in VOYA: Voices of Youth Advocates

Screenshot of VOYA website, 1/13/2012

In September 2011, Rebecca A. Hill interviewed me for an article she was writing for VOYA: Voices of Youth Advocates. The article, "The Color of Authenticity in Multicultural Children's Literature", is in the December 2011 issue of VOYA. Shown here is a screenshot of the VOYA website. I read Hills' article by clicking on the "Digital VOYA" frame shown on the right of the image.

Hill does an excellent job laying out issues that I write about here on AICL.

After posing some provocative questions, she moves into a discussion of the work of Rudine Sims Bishop in Shadow and Substance, and, key moments in the development of multicultural literature. These include Nancy Larrick's The All White World of Children's Books, published in the Saturday Review in 1965, and the vitally important work done by the Council on Interracial Books for Children (CIBC).

Then, Hill features K.T. Horning and the work done at the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin. CCBC has been charting the number of books by and about writers of color and, K.T. notes, they've seen little change from one year to the next. A quote from K.T.:

"Back in the 1980s and into the 1990s, we used to hear that publishers wanted to publish more multicultural books, but that they didn't have authors and artists of color submitting things," Horning said. "The last ten years we have been hearing that [it is] marketing that drives the decisions. The book buyers claim that books with kids of color on the cover don't sell or, in order for the buyers to purchase these books, a kid of nondescript color needs to be on the cover."

From there, Hill's article is about the "who can write" debate. That's where she turns to her interview with me where we talked about Little House on the Prairie and the need to do more than archival research when writing a book that has Native characters.

I downloaded a pdf copy of the article from VOYA's nifty "Digital VOYA". If you go to the VOYA site while the December issue is available, you can download it, too. And other articles, as well! The option to read VOYA in digital copy is terrific. (Note: When I talked with Rebecca, I told her about Onate, the Spanish explorer who invaded Pueblo lands and issued orders to have a foot cut off of men and boys who survived a fight between the Spanish and the people of Acoma Pueblo. Columbus may have done that, too. I don't know. )

Lesson Plan: WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR MOCCASINS

While working as a librarian, Kathleen Horning of the CCBC, recommended children's books about American Indians whenever she could. For example, she recommended Bernelda Wheeling's Where Did You Get Your Moccasins whenever someone was looking for a story about grandparents, or a book about "where things come from" or one about clothing.

Among its many strengths is that Where Did You Get Your Moccasins is about a Native child of today.

If you work with preschool or kindergarten children and you're interested in a lesson plan for the book, Montana's Indian Ed for All developed one that spans five days. Click here to download a pdf of the lesson plan [note that it also has lesson plans for three other books: 1) The Gift of the Bitteroot, 2) Beaver Steals Fire, and 3) The War Shirt]. The lesson plans provide information about the author and illustrator and are keyed to content standards for the state of Montana.

The Horn Book Magazine, 1959

I'm in Santa Fe at the state library doing homework for one of my MLIS courses. Setting that work aside for a few minutes to peruse the shelves, I've come across The Horn Book Magazine. On the open shelves, they've got issues going waaaaaaay back, so, I pulled out the issue for the month and year of my birth. A bit egocentric, I admit....  Here's what I see:

To the right is the cover for the April issue. The illustration is used on all covers (1959 and 1960) in the box I pulled. And here's the short list of articles in the February issue:

A New Look at Heroes of the Southwest, by Camilla Campbell
Theodore Roosevelt and Children's Books, by Peggy Sullivan
A Children's Literary Tour of Great Britain, by Joan H. Bodger

Course, given the topic of AICL, I'm intrigued by the first article. Heroes of the Southwest? Heroes for who, I wonder?  Turning the page, I see an illustration at the of the title page. It shows three men on horses. The horses are drinking from a river. The men are wearing uniforms. The table of contents tells me that it is a drawing by Harve Stein for Coronado and His Captains. That book was written by Camilla Campbell, the author of the article, A New Look at Heroes of the Southwest. I'll get to the article in a minute, but for now, I'll keep on with my page-by-page study of the issue.

The Hunt Breakfast on page 2 tells me that Campbell was born and raised in Texas. Her article is an edited version of a talk she gave at the Texas Library Association on March 29th, 1958. Coronado and His Captains is reviewed in this issue.

Page 6 is an ad for the World Book Encyclopedia. At the top of the page is an illustration that includes a totem pole, a newspaper, an airplane, an oil derrick, a lake...  I wonder what the encyclopedia entry for totem pole says?

Page 7 has an ad for Thomas Nelson & Sons. It includes:

• Painted Pony Runs Away written and illustrated by Jessie Brewer McGaw. It is "an exciting story about a runaway pony told in authentic Indian pictographs."  
• Protector of the Indians by Evan Jones. Illustrated by George Fulton, it is an "absorbing biography of the Indian's first friend, Bartolome de Las Casas. 

Authentic Indian pictographs? Hmmm...  I wonder how "authentic" was being used then? de Las Casas did document a lot of atrocities that don't get much ink in children's books about contact between indigenous peoples and the Spanish.

Page 8 is about Macmillan Books for Boys and Girls, Spring, 1959. It includes:

• Xingu by Violette and John Viertel. Illustrated by Karla Kuskin, "this touching story of a little Indian boy and his animal friends has the universal appeal of a children's classic." 
• The Mystery of the Aztec Idol by Harriett H. Carr is about an American boy who visits Mexico and "discovers a valuable relic eagerly sought by many people."

"Universal" is a tricky word...  I'd like to see that book. What universal value does it appeal to? Is there such a thing? And that Aztec idol...  I'd like to see that book, too. It makes me think of an episode of the Brady Bunch!

Page 13 is the ad page for The World Publishing Company. They feature Indians written and illlustrated by Edwin Tunis. In it, he "re-creates the everyday life of the American Indian before the arrival of the white man. A treasure house of a book which presents every aspect of Indian life in lively text and more than 230 drawings." Wow! Sounds comprehensive. I wonder if Tunis distinguishes one tribal nation from another?

On page 16 is another illustration by Stein for Coronado and his Captains. It shows Coronado's route from Mexico city and up into Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Campbell's article starts on page 17. I'll study and write about it later.

The "Late Winter Booklist" of recommended (and reviewed) books starts on page 31. "Spanish Heroes in the New World" starts on page 38. That is where Coronado and his Captains and Protector of the Indians are reviewed. So is Maud Hart Lovelace's What Cabrillo Found (he "found" California).

On page 74 is information about the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, a new award given by the University of Wisconsin School of Education and state organizations in Wisconsin. Publishers submit titles and a committee of librarians, teachers, parents, and writers selected 16 books. Among them is Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods. I've written about that book before... it is the one in which Pa, as a child, played at hunting Indians. On page 53, Wilder wrote:

I began to play I was a mighty hunter, stalking the wild animals and the Indians. 

I don't think K.T. Horning at CCBC would select that book today.

Finishing my page-by-page study of the February issue, I see more ads on the closing pages. Julian Messner's list includes a book by David C. Cooke, called Tecumseh: Destiny's Warrior, and Robin McKown's Painter of the Wild West: Frederick Remington.  Hastings House offered Red Eagle by Shannon Garst, illustrated by Hubert Buel. The ad says it is a "true-to-life story of how a Plains Indian boy overcomes his handicaps and becomes a brave. Based on actual facts about the Sioux." Farrar, Straus & Cudahy were pushing Kit Carson of the Old West by Mark Boesch, illustrated by Joshua Tolford. It is a "sparkling" biography about Kit Carson's career, which included "Indian scout."

That's it for now... I've gotta run to the copy machine to copy Campbell's article. The library closes in 25 minutes. Sorry for typos, lack of clarity, etc. in my rush to load this post.

Kalamazoo Youth Literature Seminar 2010 - Cynthia Leitich Smith and Gillian Engberg

Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of several terrific books and short stories, was the keynote speaker at the Mary Calletto Rife Youth Literature Seminar. The seminar was started in 1978 by Rife, and named after her when she retired in 2001.

At every step of the way, Sue Warner at the Kalamazoo Public Library and her staff went above and beyond the norm to welcome and help me with anything I needed.  I had never been to Kalamazoo, but had been looking forward to it for some time because of a news story I heard a few weeks ago about the Kalamazoo Promise. Basically, students who start kindergarten and then graduate from Kalamazoo Public Schools are eligible for a scholarship covering 100 percent of their college tuition (as long as they maintain a 2.0 GPA)!

First stop on Thursday evening was a visit to the library where Cynthia Leitich Smith was giving a talk. The library is one of the most beautiful places I've been to! On her blog, Cynthia shared several photos taken at the library and the next day at the Fetzer Center on the campus of Western Michigan University.

I think it was in 2002 that I met Cynthia at an NCTE Convention in Atlanta. In Kalamazoo, I was engrossed by her presentation. I tried to take notes, but was so taken with the remarks, that I don't have much on my notepaper! She gave us context for the places and times she was born and grew up, and how reviewers and fans, too, characterize the stories and histories of Native peoples as ones best described as a "plight" and "caught between two worlds." Both are (using my words, not hers), a "deficit model" of framing who we are. Both rely on a romantic, tragic framework, rather than one of resilience and strength. She pointed to publication numbers (referencing the CCBC stats) and how very little growth we see in terms of publication of books by or about American Indians.

One phrase that I underlined is that certain things in a book can "undermine the magic" of the story. Though she wasn't necessarily talking about depictions of Native peoples in children's books, that is what happens to me, and to Native children, way too often. We may be happily reading a children's picture book or a young adult novel, and suddenly there's a word that breaks the magic of the story. Earlier today I pointed to that sort of thing...  Stereotypical images in picture books, and a few months ago, I pointed to the frequency of that sort of thing when I did an analysis of Indian imagery in Elizabeth Bird's Top 100 Novels list. Cynthia said that she read just about every Newbery Award winner, but that she very deliberately avoided ones like Sign of the Beaver...  Ones that, I think, would undermine the magic for her---a Native reader. Cyn also referenced RaceFail --- a conversation that mostly took place in LiveJournal, but I don't recall why she mentioned it. If you're interested, this is a good compilation of posts about RaceFail. 

In her session Gillian Engberg opened by talking about language and translation. She read from a May 22, 2000 New York Times article in which Louise Erdrich (author of Birchbark House) talked about learning Ojibwe. Erdrich wrote that her English and her Catholic training touched her intellectually and symbolically but never engaged her heart. Does reading that last sentence make your heart twist somehow? It does mine, and, listening to Gillian read these words at the conference, I felt that same sensation in my heart then. Erdrich wrote:

Ojibwemowin is also a language of emotions; shades of feeling can be mixed like paints. There is a word for what occurs when your heart is silently shedding tears. 

I'm really grateful, Gillian, that you pulled from Erdrich's article in your talk. Hearing (in my mind) your voice, quietly reading those words to us in Kalamazoo, and then reading them again today in my office, I'm so moved by words and what words can do, on many levels, in many languages...

The symposium was about borders, and, what is possible when we're willing to do more than simply cross a border, but to know what it really means to cross borders, and what it means to be amongst people on the other side of those borders. In my presentation, I placed my discussion of Little House on the Prairie in historical context, arguing that it is factually inaccurate in its portrayals of Native people. I showed a clip from the Trail of Tears segment of the We Shall Remain series on PBS.

So much is possible if we're willing to think about words and how they touch all of us. I'll close with two questions. Can you imagine knowing the word for what occurs when your heart is silently shedding tears? And can you imagine being a Native child for whom a story's magic is broken by a word like "squaw"? 

-----

For further reading: "Two Languages in Mind, but Just One in the Heart" by Louise Erdrich.  

-----
Update, November 9, 7:07 AM
I just read Elizabeth Bird's Fusenews: "swinish Milneish parts" post at SLJ. She's from Kalamazoo, and, in her post, notes that both Cynthia Leitich Smith and I referenced her SLJ blog. She wrote:

Debbie Reese made reference to the Top 100 Children’s Novels Poll and the stereotypical images in some of those books.  All well and good, and we will assume that she made it clear that this was a poll I conducted and not my own personal list conjured out of my own head.  It’s more interesting when you take into account the number of folks who voted.

I did talk about the list, but as I commented on her post a few minutes ago, I don't know if I said it was the outcome of a poll, rather than her own personal list.  Because I think it important to be clear with words and ideas conveyed, I'll certainly pay attention to precisely what I say about it--and other things--in lectures, writing, etc. 

Books by and about American Indians: 2009

Each year, I rely on CCBC Choices to provide me with statistics about the number of children's books about American Indians and by American Indians published in the previous year. Each year, I add to the table from the previous year. It's not a spiffy-looking graphic, but the info is important!


Year---Number of bks---About Amer Ind---By Native writer and/illustrator
2002--------3,150--------------------64-----------------------6---------------
2003--------3,200--------------------95----------------------11--------------
2004--------2,800--------------------33-----------------------7--------------
2005--------2,800--------------------34-----------------------4--------------
2006--------3,000--------------------41----------------------14-------------
2007--------3,000--------------------44-----------------------6--------------
2008--------3,000--------------------40-----------------------9--------------

2009--------3,000--------------------33----------------------12-------------


As CCBC is careful to note:

These statistics represent only quantity, not quality or authenticity. A significant number—well over half—of the books about each broad racial/ethnic grouping are formulaic books offering profiles of various countries around the world. Additionally, the number of books created by authors and illustrators of color does not represent the actual number of individual book creators, as some individuals created two or more books.

What are the 33 books about American Indians? And who are the 12 authors/illustrators (keeping in mind that the number is not 12 different authors or illustrators)? I'll need to do some research to find out what books they received. Reading their website, I see one of the books they received is Joseph Bruchac's Night Wings. I haven't read it yet.

Back from Madison, and, Sewell Illustrations in LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE

Yesterday afternoon I was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Janice Rice. We were there at the invitation of Ryan Comfort of the American Indian Curriculum Services office in the School of Education.

Working with the theme "Expanding the Narrative," I talked about problems with "the Narrative" as exemplified by Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie, and, uncritical observance and activities about Thanksgiving. Janice highlighted books that have been selected for the American Indian Library Association's Youth Literature Award. We also talked about Best Practice, Censorship and Selection. 

Time sped by! The turnout was terrific, and it was wonderful to spend time with people in the Native community there---Janice, Ryan, JP, Adrienne, Crystal (I hope I've spelled your name right!)---and, friends at CCBC---KT, Janice, Megan, and Amanda.

In the CCBC, I had a few minutes to myself and realized they probably had a copy of the 1935 edition of Little House on the Prairie---the version I wrote about last week. I asked Amanda, and she got it out for me. Hurray! I started paging through it, and realized (in hindsight, I'm doing a "doh!") that Helen Sewell and Garth Williams illustrated different stories in the book. Page through your copy of the Williams-illustrated-edition and note how many times his illustrations are of Indians. Sewell, on the other hand, has a single illustration of Indians. Hers is in the chapter, "Indians Ride Away." She shows a naked Indian riding a horse. The caption reads "The little Indians did not have to wear clothes."

When I got home from Madison late this afternoon, my mail included that 1935 copy I ordered last week. Again, hurray!  I can now do a close comparison of the 1935/Sewell with the 1953/Williams editions of Little House on the Prairie, looking at text and illustration. Questions! Williams did a lot of Indian illustrations. Was this his choice? Was he cued by Nordstrom? Wilder? What prompted Williams to do so many Indians?

Thanks, Ryan, for inviting me, and thanks, Janice! I think we did a good job with our presentation. Thanks, too, to all of you who came to hear what we shared.