SLJ's "Diversity" Booklist in May issue includes flawed book about Native people

School Library Journal's much anticipated special issue on Diversity was uploaded today (May 1, 2014) in the midst of the We Need Diverse Books campaign, much of which focuses on promoting books by writers who are not white able-bodied males.

Looking over the list of books they recommend, I am astonished to see Rosanne Parry's deeply flawed Written in Stone on the list. Her outsider perspective is all through that book, and she made up several things (which, she says, is "what fiction writers do"), thereby adding to the already-too-high-pile of misinformation that circulates as information about Native peoples.

Why did SLJ choose here, simultaneously contributing to the invisibility of Native writers?

Why did they go with Parry over any of the 30+ authors of the books on the Focus On list that I wrote for them in November, several of which were singled out for distinction by the American Indian Library Association? Presumably they invited me to write that column (in 2008 and 2013) because they trust my work.

What gives, SLJ?

Additional thoughts:

I know many of you are reading my words and thinking that I'm being mean, that my critique and questions are personal and therefore inappropriate. I understand that concern. Nobody likes being poked or prodded. I don't like doing any poking or prodding, but I did and will continue when necessary, because in this day and age, Native children shouldn't have to read books that make them go 'huh?' A Makah mother told me that her daughter got Parry's book in the library, but they took it back because it didn't make sense. Moreover, non-Native children shouldn't have to read books that add to their already-too-big body of misinformation about Native people. Neither group ought to be encouraged to do craft activities that trivialize Native spirituality, either (the teachers guide for Written In Stone suggests that students make a mask).

Children's books are for children. As adults, that is who I think we ought to keep in mind.

Back in 1999 when Ann Rinaldi's My Heart is on the Ground was published and got rave reviews from the review journals, editors of those journals were taken aback at how wrong they were in their reviews of that book. SLJ asked me to write an article about it then: Authenticity and Sensitivity: Goals for Writing and Reviewing Books with Native American Themes.

So again, SLJ, what gives?

Update May 1, 3:32 PM

The Cooperative Center for Children's Books at the University of Wisconsin published a critique of the entire set of books. It is excellent. I encourage you to read it:
Culturally Generic/Neutral?

About "diverse" books and inclusivity in Brian Floca's LOCOMOTIVE

Editor's note, March 1, 2014: The book discussed herein won the 2014 Caldecott Medal. Its win signals how much work there is ahead of us in terms of diversity and representation of everyone who "We the People" references. 

________________________________________

Among the books that has gotten some buzz this year as a frontrunner for major book awards is Brian Floca's Locomotive. Published in 2013 by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, it is a celebratory treatment of the transcontinental railroad presented in a travelogue style. That railroad was completed in 1869.

In Locomotive, a white woman and her two children board the train in Omaha bound for San Francisco. As they get off the train at San Francisco, Floca's text reads:

Now your days on the train are done.
You are tired and dusty,
the smell of smoke in your clothes.
But now you are here!
Here where you needed to go,
here where you need to be...

Turning the page, one sees a man, arms outstretched. I assume he is the children's father and the woman's husband. The text on that page is:

...here with the people
you've waited
and wanted
and needed to see.

I won't deny the need and joy of any family's reunion, but in this review essay, I use Floca's text to pose some questions, particularly as people in children's literature take up the word "diversity" or "diverse books." So far, I haven't seen anyone say that his book is a "diverse" book, but I can see how it might garner that sort of characterization, because the first full page of the book shows Chinese men. For Locomotive to succeed as a "diverse" book, however, its readers need to see far more than Floca gave us.

On the page "The Great Plains" (the book is not paginated; the words "The Great Plains" are on the bottom right corner of the double-paged spread), the illustration is of a vast sky and an expanse of grassland. Moving through it is the train. Here's what Floca wrote:

The hours and miles roll by.
The country opens,
opens wide,
empty as an ocean.

I paused when I read "empty as an ocean." Describing land as empty is something that Laura Ingalls Wilder did, too. Describing a place as empty depends on the person using that description. Some years ago, I took my laptop in for servicing. The screen background I had at the time was a photograph I took of the view from my house on the reservation. The technician looked at that photo and said something about how empty it was and how it should be developed. To me, it wasn't empty. To me, it is my homeland. If the Great Plains were my homeland, I wouldn't call it empty. But that's what Floca's white family sees. I think that is what they want and need to see in order to be able to celebrate that railroad and their travels across those plains.

Floca's text on that page continues with this:

Here the bison used to roam,
by the hundreds, by the millions.
Here the Cheyenne lived,
and Pawnee and Arapaho.

Again, I paused.

Will Floca tell his readers that the railroad played a role in the demise--or rather, slaughter--of the bison? Will he tell them, for example, that white hunters shot buffalo from open train windows? Or that millions of hides were shipped on those trains by hunters who left bison carcasses to rot? (The answer to those questions is no. He doesn't. Is it fair to expect him to? Could he include it in the notes at the end of the book? Whether he should or not is debatable. More on that later...)

And what about the use of "lived" to describe the Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Arapaho. Does that sentence suggest to a reader with "vanished" Indians as part of his or her knowledge base that the Cheyenne, the Pawnee, and the Arapaho no longer exist at all? Will Floca say more about this? (The answer is no.)

On the page with "The Forty-Mile Desert" in the bottom right corner, we learn that the train is now in the Great Basin:

On the train rolls,
down through the desert,
the home of the Paiute and the Shoshone,
It's a land of dust and bitter rivers,
rivers that never reach the sea--
they sink away,
they vanish.

I like what he says there, "home of the Paiute and the Shoshone" much better than his use of "lived" regarding the Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Arapaho. I like that he names specific tribes, too, but that isn't enough--in my view--to make this a book that would appeal to a diverse audience that includes children of those Native Nations, or children who have learned a more critical history and view of history.

Let's flip to the end papers that open the book. I like that Floca has used them, too, to pass along information by way of his illustrations. There's a map showing the transcontinental railroad and all the states it passes through. There's some people drawn on the map, but none of them are Native. In fact, nowhere on the end pages do I see illustrations or references to Native people at all. The small illustrations that frame the map on the top of the page show what I take to be the Mayflower and a wagon train. Beneath the map is one that shows workers making a tunnel, one that shows them laying track, and then, one that shows the meeting point for the tracks the two companies built (the two companies were the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific).

If I was advising Floca, I'd have suggested--at the very least--that he add homelands of Native Nations to that map.

Let's turn now, to "A Note on the Locomotive" at the end of the book. There, Floca tells us about the thousands of Chinese who worked for the railroads in the West, and he tells us of the waves of European immigrants who settled along the railroads. Then, there's a long paragraph about Native peoples. All of the following excerpts are in that paragraph. He begins with this:

If the railroad offered change to some, it imposed change on others, none more so than American Indians, who variously accepted, cooperated with, and fought the railroads as the railroads pushed across the continent. In the West, the Central Pacific made agreements with the Paiute and Shoshone of the Great Basin, some of whom worked alongside Chinese laborers to help build the road. (The groups worked well together, although there is a story of the Paiutes alarming the Chinese by telling them that the desert was inhabited by giant, man-eating snakes.)

"[A]s the railroads pushed across the continent"? How about "as the railroads and the federal government did what they wanted to take Native land." And what are we to make of the story in parentheses? That the Paiutes were mean to the Chinese? Or, maybe we're meant to think of the Chinese as simple minded? Or maybe, superstitious? Maybe this is Floca's attempt to inject a bit of levity?

Floca goes on to say that Pawnees also chose to work with the Union Pacific, and it was when the railroad "pushed" through Nebraska that there were problems because it

disrupted the grazing ranges of the bison, or American buffalo, the animal at the center of the diet, economy, and culture of the Plains, and the Cheyenne responded with attacks on surveyors and work crews.

There's a section in the book that shows things that did not happen to the train the family was riding on. One is a train going too fast on a curve and derailing. Another is of the crew letting too much water boil away, leading to an explosion. I think Floca could have shown one of those Cheyenne attacks on that page. What he says next tells us that he has a good sense of the reason for those attacks. He could have used that information alongside an illustration of Cheyenne's attacking the trains:

(General Phil Sheridan, although as ruthless a campaigner in the Indian wars as any, observed that "we took away their country and their means of support, broke up their mode of living, their habits of life, introduced disease and decay among them, and it was for this and against this that they made war. Could anyone expect less?")

The parenthesis in that excerpt are in the book. Parentheses are generally used to set off supplemental information that is an aside, or an afterthought, or something that is tangential to the information being presented. Seeing Floca's use of it in this instance sort of reflects his treatment overall of Native people in Locomotive. We're an aside. An afterthought. What happened to Native people is tangential to the information he wants to share in Locomotive. Therein is the problem. Did he not imagine us as his readers? And let's not forget that Sheridan said "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead"

Next is this:

The attacks were recurring and deadly, but the railroad--backed by the U.S. Army--could not be stopped. Once the line was completed, portions of it in Nevada were sometimes used by the Paiute and Shoshone, who through their treaties with the Central Pacific were entitled to rides on the train through their territories. 

First thing to note: tribes didn't make treaties with railroads. Treaties are agreements made between governments. The treaty Floca may have had in mind is the US government's 1863 Treaty with the Western Shoshone in which the Shoshone agreed to stop attacking the existing trains and also agreed not to attack the construction of "a railway from the plains west to the Pacific ocean."

Second, that excerpt tells us that Floca knew that Native people rode the trains. Could he have included illustrations of Paiute or Shoshone people riding the train? There's a page in the book that shows the interior of a train. A boy is walking down the aisle selling newspapers. In the foreground is a man reading Harper's Weekly. What if that was a Paiute or Shoshone man, looking askance at this illustration from an October 1874 issue?

The point I wish to make with this essay is that Locomotive is a one-sided presentation of history. It has to be, I suppose, in order for it to be celebratory, but shouldn't we be beyond one-sided celebrations?

A few years ago, the Children's Book Council established its CBC Diversity Committee. Among its goals are a dedication to increasing the diversity of voices and experiences contributing to children's literature. The experience that is missing in Floca's book is that of Native peoples. Including us probably wasn't his intent. Maybe one of CBC's actions towards diversity could be to ask authors to be more inclusive in what they create. Maybe another one could be to ask reviewers to note absences in books like Locomotive. 

There are other absences in Floca's book. He includes an illustration of Chinese laborer's on the first page, but doesn't say much about them in the text or in the Note at the end of the book. Though they constituted 90% of the work force, they weren't invited to that celebration of the railroad being completed. How, I wonder, does a child descended from one of the Chinese laborer's feel about so little of their experience being included in Locomotive?

And, there's more to say about San Francisco and Native peoples of California, too. Am I asking for too much? Some would say yes, others would say no. Some would be critical of me for criticizing the book for what it leaves out, but I'll say, again, we have to provide books that are more inclusive of all the peoples that live in the United States. Without them, we're still stuck in an all-white world of children's books, and demographics show---the United States is not an all-white world.

Editors note: My apologies for inadvertently using Locomotion instead of Locomotive in four places. That error has been corrected. 

--------------------------
For further reading:
American Indians and the Transcontinental Railroad



Update: Jan 21, 2014, 5:15 PM

Brian Floca submitted comments to my critique. I am pasting them here for the convenience of readers of AICL and will respond once I have studied his comments. Here they are:

Debbie,

I appreciate your thoughts on “Locomotive,” critical and otherwise. “Locomotive” was always intended first and foremost as a book about what it was like to operate and travel behind a steam locomotive in 1869. The most difficult stretches in the making of the book were spent thinking about how best to handle the many people and stories connected with the first transcontinental line without taking the book too far from that core concern, from the book I most wanted and felt most able to make, and no story was more difficult to try to get right than that of the Native American relationship to the line. The balances I struck with all those stories will be right for some readers and not for others, I recognize. I appreciate your perspective on those choices, and would be glad for the chance to share a response to a few of the questions you raised.

I had text and illustrations to work with while making this book, and you’re right of course that the Native American material ended up represented in the text and not the drawings. Many factors led to the final shape of this information in the book, including pacing and availability of reliable visual reference material for particular moments and periods. I knew any images would be looked at critically, and I didn’t want to include them if I wasn’t sure I could get them right. I also had to consider the choice of scenes that might accurately and representatively be shown given the setting and period of the book. One thing I had to consider, for instance, was this difficult and restricting paragraph from Dee Brown’s “Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow: Railroads in the West”: “The universal desire of all pioneer travelers on the transcontinental was to see a “real wild Indian.” Few of them did, because the true warriors of the plains hated the Iron Horse and seldom came within miles of it…. The Indians whom the travelers saw were mostly those who had been corrupted and weakened by contacts with the white man’s civilization—scroungers, mercenaries, or beggars by necessity.” It was also hard to find reference for the sort of interaction I would have wanted to show between the Paiute and Shoshone who rode with white passengers on the Central Pacific in Nevada, and this felt like another imposed limit. Your post makes me wonder again what other options I had and what else I might have done, but I assure you the effort was there as I was making the book.

Some of these questions about presentation and what’s included and what’s not are simply matters of taste and tone. The emptiness of the Plains is, of course, one of those matters of perspective, but it’s not described as empty for no reason. In various accounts, train passengers on the Plains in the 1860s were overwhelmed by an expanse so different than the forests, hills, valleys, mountains, or cities that many were used to. To Robert Louis Stevenson, for instance, the Great Plains were “a world almost without a feature; an empty sky, an empty earth; front and back, line of railway stretched from horizon to horizon, like a cue across a billiard-board…. The train toiled over this infinity like a snail….” I wanted that feeling in the book. 

When it comes to word choices, the use of the word “lived” on that page was not meant to imply “vanished,” and I hope that for readers it won’t. I also hoped that “The railroad and the men who built it—they have changed it all” would indeed convey who was behind these changes, and that the herd of bison covering the land on the book’s cover, beneath the jacket, would suggest the destructive as well as triumphant nature of the rail line. 

On the front endpapers, the drawing of a clipper ship is there to illustrate the passage of text immediately to the right of the drawing, the description of trips taken by ship around Cape Horn. Across these endpapers I wanted to show the motives for the railroad and its construction and in the end, for better or worse, these filled the page. 

In the note at the back of the book, what I liked about the anecdote about the Paiute and Chinese was the surprise, humanity, and unexpected humor in the story. I often see stories about these workers presented rather stiffly, in my opinion; this story was a break from that tone. 

No Cheyenne attack is shown in the book for a few reasons, but the foremost is that the Cheyenne weren’t really attacking the first transcontinental railroad after it was constructed. In “Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow,” Brown writes of passengers who were worried about such an attack: “Such perturbed passengers might better have been fretting over Anglo-Saxon train robbers, such as Jesse James, who were far more likely to wreck and rob a train in the 1870s than were the Indians.” One of the consolations of not being able to fit everything in a book is knowing that you’re surely not making the only book on the subject, though. I wonder what you think of Paul Goble’s “Death of the Iron Horse,” depicting the Cheyenne attack on a train at Plum Creek, Nebraska, in 1867? I can imagine “Locomotive” and “Death of the Iron Horse” paired together.

The parentheses around the Sheridan quote were a way of giving that quote, a change of tone from the rest of the note, a bit of its own space. Possibly they were unnecessary, and if because of them the quote reads as less important than it would otherwise, then they were a mistake. Sheridan’s ruthlessness, also mentioned in the note, I thought only added to the sting and surprise of the remark, and that was one of the things I found remarkable and provoking about it.

As for the treaties with the Paiute and Shoshone, while an agreement with a government may be one definition of a treaty, I don’t believe it is the only one. In “A Great and Shining Road,” John Hoyt Williams describes the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863 and then continues, “The Central Pacific, which was granted permission by the Nevada legislature to build through the state only in 1866, was taking no chances. In that year the company signed its own treaties with the dreaded Apache subtribes, Paiutes, and others.…” And here is Dee Brown again: “To avoid conflicts with Indians—such as had hampered the Union Pacific and Kansas Pacific on the Great Plains—the Central Pacific offered some of the [N]ative Americans employment and then signed a special treaty with the Paiutes and Shoshonis.” 

Finally, it’s incorrect to say that Chinese workers made up 90% of the workforce that built the transcontinental line. As is stated in the front endpapers of “Locomotive,” Chinese workers constituted up to 90% of the Central Pacific workforce, but the Union Pacific half of the line was built largely by Irish immigrants and former soldiers. It is also, happily, incorrect to say that no Chinese were invited to the celebration of the railroad’s completion. A. J. Russell’s stereograph “Chinese at Laying Last Rail UPRR” shows Chinese workers laying the last piece of rail at Promontory Summit, and a contemporary account tells us that “J.H. Strowbridge [sic], when the work was all over, invited the Chinamen who had been brought over from Victory for the purpose, to dine in his boarding car. When they entered all the guests and officers present cheered them as the chosen representatives of the race which have greatly helped to build the road—a tribute they well deserved, and which evidently gave them much pleasure.” This was surely less than they warranted, but is worth remembering. More about the Chinese and Irish in this book might have been better, but there are other books the cover building the line, and the heart of this book is about traveling the line—thus the low proportion of attention given to the line’s builders (to say nothing of those who first envisioned the transcontinental railroad, advocated for it, legislated it, financed it, surveyed it, and engineered it). 

Like every book, “Locomotive” has its limits. I wouldn’t be able to and I haven’t tried to tell and show readers everything that I might, but I’ve hoped to make a book that will interest them and, ideally, make them want to know more. I hope that for most readers the book makes a contribution to their understanding of the period, events, and people it describes, including the Native Americans. I’m aware that no book will please all readers, though, and I appreciate your thoughts on my effort. Certainly working on the book was a learning experience for me, and indeed I feel like I’m still learning from the book and where it’s led me, this conversation included.

Best,

Brian Floca


Update, Monday January 27, 2014

Brian,

A few hours ago, your name was read as the winner of the 2014 Caldecott. While I'm trying to make myself feel joyful--because I love books, too--I'm not joyful. I'm angry. But my anger isn't necessarily at you. It's more at the status quo than anything. Your response indicates to me that you gave a lot of thought to what you included and how and why, and I'm glad of that. I'll address your comments in a moment.

For now, I'm addressing the whole-ness of children's literature. Or, maybe, the Caldecott committee. And maybe all those who cheered when your name was called out. Given all the attention to diversity of late, it seems LOCOMOTIVE is a choice that says "we don't care about diversity." Course, that assumes that people who are on the committee know and care about diversity in the first place, and I'm not privy to that information.

Some people are paying attention. Betsy Bird and Lori Ess held a "pre-game" event during which they noted the importance of my critique. Others are tweeting and sharing it via Facebook, so that's good, too.

So here I am, angry. It feels small and petty to be raining on your parade. Perhaps a bit later you can return here and we can continue to talk, because there is much to do, I think, and your assistance in helping us get a bit further down that road would be invaluable.

So. On to your comments.

I imagine you feel damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't when considering how you might illustrate anything to do with Native people. Myself and many others are deeply invested in those images being right, and you're right to be wary. Source material is highly problematic! Seems that Dee Brown is the go-to person for information about American Indians. Reading Brown's books can give some insight so that people avoid making certain kinds of errors, but goodness! There's so much better material available! I strongly urge authors/illustrators to move beyond Brown to Native sources.

The first place I'd go is right to the website of the tribe I was trying to illustrate. Lisa Mitten of the American Indian Library Association has a list of websites by tribe. Sites created by the tribe (rather than a company) are marked with a drum. Once at the site, I'd look for a tribal historian or tribal museum. I'd absolutely stay away from standard encyclopedias. Perspective in them is so biased! So---to authors and illustrators out there---your first stop ought to be a tribe's website. That's not saying someone there will talk to you. Some will, some won't. Some will be too busy helping tribal leaders who are defending the land and resources -- both of which are constantly under assault.

Some will be delighted that an author/illustrator wants to feature their tribe, and they'll be glad to help, but they may not know much about children's literature and critical analysis of image. Or they may not know how important it is to get it right. I'll use myself as an example. Before I started graduate school at the University of Illinois, I knew image was important, but leaving my reservation and living amongst a white population with white perspectives really made it clear to me how damaging stereotypes can be. To them, we didn't look "Indian" because we weren't wearing buckskin and feathers. I kid you not! As you travel in the coming year, talk to kids and teachers. See what they know about American Indians. I'm working with a teacher in a school in the Midwest who is dumbstruck by the things the gifted children she works with "know" about American Indians. I expect that the conversations you have will be similar to that. Her reports affirm what I said in my critique about "lived" and undergird my concern with the use of past tense. So--if you do find someone at the tribe who will work with you, be mindful of the need to triangulate with others, too. This isn't easy--I know--and though it'd be easier just NOT to depict Native people... we've got to try! And if your source is critical and asks you to change something, do it! Ann Rinaldi is Exhibit A in asking for and then disregarding input.

In your response about "lived" you noted that the book cover is a herd of bison. I had no idea. I only saw the jacket. And it is the jacket that is being shown on all sites. Everyone who is reading this conversation between me and Brian---look under the jacket. It is startlingly different in impact. You said you hoped that the line "The railroad and the men who built it--they have changed it all" would convey destruction and triumph. I haven't seen any reviews that say anything at all about destruction of land, killing of bison, or the taking of Native lands for the railroads and towns along them. If you had included---maybe on that page with the wreck and explosion---an illustration of bison dead all along the railroad, shot from train windows, that'd have made destruction very clear. I understand it may have taken you, in part, in a direction you didn't want to go, but I think it would have made your book so much more informative and inclusive if you had. Teachers and librarians reading this conversation--I'd love to know if you take up the destruction, or if you see it referenced in a review.

The anecdote about Paiute and Chinese: Right! Both populations are too often portrayed in stiff ways. Hence, your surprise at the story is understandable AND points to why it would have been great for you to have included illustrations that would counter that depiction.

The Cheyenne attack: Ok, they didn't attack the transcontinental railroad, but the wreck and explosion you showed on that double-paged spread weren't about the train the family was on. So--I think it could have been included. Your text could explain the attack, just as you explained the wreck and explosion.

Paul Goble's book? You see it as being paired with yours. I'll get it and see. I'm not optimistic, though. Native critics are not at all happy with his trickster books: About Paul Goble and his books.

Front endpapers: You write that you wanted to show motives for the railroad and its construction, but I'm not sure I see what you were getting at. I understand that there was a desire to have that railroad, but why? Saying the journey was "expensive, difficult, and often dangerous" describes the travel, but not why the travel was being done. Who was trying to get to California? Why were they trying to get to California? What did their desire to get there mean for the Native peoples who were already there?

Treaties: When looking for information on treaties, I generally turn to Native scholars. I pointed to one in my critique. Here's another one, which is the one you referenced in your comment. You cite the author of A Great and Shining Road as saying tribes made a treaty with the railroad company. The Treaty with the Western Shoshone starts out like this: "Treaty of Peace and Friendship made at Ruby Valley..." That treaty is between tribes and the US government, not the railroad. I don't have Hoyt's book, and maybe there is a treaty between the tribes and the railroad, but I kind of doubt it. I don't have Brown's either. Can you tell me what they cite?

Chinese and celebrations: Right. They were 90% of labor on the Central Pacific workforce. Thanks for sharing the info on Chinese being at the celebration. My info came from Gallery2 of the Smithsonian's Asian Pacific American Studies page, in the caption for the photograph "Joining the Tracks" which is the photo that I think you used for your illustration of that celebration. Their source is Lisa Yee's book, On Gold Mountain. 

Well. That's all I've got for now. Thanks, Brian, for your response, and I look forward to a continuing conversation. And do ask kids and teachers and librarians what they know about American Indians and see what they say.

Debbie

Thumbs down to some titles on CBC Diversity's Goodreads Bookshelf

The Children's Book Council's Diversity Committee is, perhaps, the most recent effort within the children's publishing arena to push for diversity in children's and young adult literature. The 'about' page on their website says they are "dedicated to increasing the diversity of voices and experiences contributing to children's and young adult literature."

Among their activities towards that diversity of voice and experience is their Diversity Bookshelf at Goodreads that "curates front and backlist books by CBC members in order to raise awareness of the diversity-friendly content already in existence."

I'm glad they're taking this on. We most definitely need organized efforts at diversifying voice and experience.

In December, CBC member Cheryl Klein announced their Diversity 101 series and asked readers to look over Ten Quick Ways to Analyze Children's Books for Racism and Sexism (available at Sarah Park's blog), published in the 1970s by the Council on Interracial Books for Children. She pointed to her own growth over the last twelve years. I've written about my own growth in the last 20 years. This growth is a process, not an endpoint, and I hope that the journey of CBC members leads them to reconsider what they've pointed to on their Diversity Bookshelf.

I've not read all the 58 books on the CBC's Native American-Inuit list. Remember---their list is provided "to raise awareness of the diversity friendly content already in existence." I'm hoping that CBC members study Ten Quick Ways and then remove the following books from the list. They are not diversity-friendly. Instead, they affirm stereotypes and bias. Until we recognize and acknowledge the problems in these books and then quit using them, we're not going to make much progress in diversifying voice and experience. I believe these authors had good intentions, but good intentions are never enough, right?

Here's critiques of some of the books on the CBC Native American list. When you click on a title, you'll go to a page with several posts about that particular book, or, to a single post about it.

• Darkness Under the Water by Beth Kannell 
• I Am Apache by Tanya Landman 
• Daughter of Winter by Pat Lowery Collins
• Starfish: A Novel by James Crowley
• D is for Drum: A Native American Alphabet by Debbie Shoulders
• How the Moon Regained Her Shape by Janet Ruth Heller
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
• Cheyenne Again by Eve Bunting

CBC has Ann Rinaldi's A Break with Charity: A Story about the Salem Witch Trials on its list, too. Though she is quite popular, she's among the worst offenders in terms of misrepresenting and stereotyping Native people. I haven't read A Break with Charity, but you might be interested in these critiques of two of her books.

• Leigh Ann's Civil War
• My Heart is on the Ground

I'll close today's post by saying that I'm concerned that the use of "diversity" and "diversity books" seems to be a new strategy within the industry itself to argue that stories can be written by anyone, and that insider perspective is not important. More thoughts on this later...

Updates, January 7, 2013
There's some books on the list that seem to be mis-labeled. Two of them are African or African American stories:

• Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky by Elphinstone Dayrell
• Feast for Ten by Cathryn Falwell

See also Thumbs up to some titles on CBC Diversity's Goodreads Bookshelf

Slapin's review of Debby Dahl Edwardson's MY NAME IS NOT EASY

Below is Beverly Slapin's review of Debby Dahl Edwardson's My Name is Not Easy.  It may not be reprinted elsewhere without her written permission. All rights reserved.

--------------------------------------- 

Edwardson, Debby Dahl, My Name Is not Easy. Marshall Cavendish, 2011; grades 7-up

The elders say the earth has turned over seven times, pole to pole,

north to south.

Freezing and thawing, freezing and thawing,

flipping over and tearing apart.

Changing everything.

We were there.

We were always there.

They say no one survived the ice age but they’re wrong.

There were seven ice ages and we survived.

We survived them all….

The residential schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs or various church denominations were established in Alaska in the 1920s. Until 1976, when the Molly Hootch settlement required the State of Alaska to establish local schools all over the state—even in the remote “bush” regions—Alaskan Native children were sent to these residential schools that were hundreds or even thousands of miles away from their homes and families. Being away for years at a time resulted in cultural ties and intergenerational relationships broken, and languages and ways of seeing the world unlearned. The wounds were deep and the scars remain. For the most part, people still don’t talk about their residential school experiences.

The young man we come to know as “Luke” does not say his Iñupiaq name because it’s “not easy” for white people to pronounce. Along with other Iñupiaq, Yup’ik, Athabascan and some white young people, he and his brothers have been sent to “Sacred Heart,” a Catholic residential school for children who live in the Far North.

There, spanning the period from 1960-1964, the lives of the Iñupiaq, Yup’ik and Athabascan students are turned upside down as they struggle to survive the harsh climate of the residential school. A harsh climate that includes heartache and loneliness. That includes the isolation of being thrust into an unknown place, away from home and family and everything that has meaning. That includes being forbidden to speak their languages. That includes being severely punished for minor infractions. That includes a system of being abducted and given in adoption to white families. That includes being forced to ingest radioactive iodine in an “investigation” of why “Eskimos” do so well in cold weather.

Edwardson’s writing is crisp and clean, and middle readers will hear the voices of the students, who need not interrupt the narrative to explain their cultures. The way Luke, for instance, sees the world—his cultural logic—is the way it is. This world that is Sacred Heart, far from home, is an alien world. Luke says:

This place is not right. You’re supposed to be able to see things when you’re outside. You’re supposed to be able to look out across the tundra and see caribou, flickering way off in the sunlight, geese flying low next to the horizon, the edge of the sky running around you like the rim of a bowl. Everything wide open and full of possibility. How can you even tell where you’re going in a place like this? How can you see the weather far enough to tell what’s coming?

….

Back home there’s a breeze coming in off the ocean ice, and I wish I could feel its cool breath on my sweaty neck right now. Wish I was sitting in a boat with chunks of ocean ice just sort of hanging there in between the smooth water and the cloudless sky—drifting with their reflections white and ghost-like against the glassy water…. How can anybody breathe in a place where there is no wind, no open sky, no ocean, no family? Nothing worth counting?

While My Name Is not Easy is fiction, the stories and events are essentially true. Luke’s and his brothers’ experiences are based on those of Edwardson’s husband, George, and his brothers at Copper Valley, a residential school that enrolled some whites as well as Iñupiaq, Yup’ik and Athabascan students. The historic events—the military’s horrific experiments with iodine-131, the massive 9.2 Good Friday earthquake, the act of civil disobedience known as the “Barrow Duck-In,” and Project Chariot, the proposed detonation to demonstrate the “peaceful use of nuclear power”—all happened.

But something else happened in the Alaskan residential schools, something that the government and church authorities probably never intended: the way the students—“Eskimo” and “Indian”—came together, the way that family was created, the unexpected thing that changed the force of history in the state, that drove the land claims movement and other political changes that gave Alaska Natives political power. “Across the state,” Debby Edwardson told me, “there’s a generation of pretty powerful leaders. George, for instance, who was known as ‘Pea Soup,’ is now tribal president.”

The younger generation of Iñupiat, she said, “has grown up with the pain of loss of the language because their parents and grandparents were punished for using it.” As in the rest of the country and Canada, New Zealand and Australia, language revitalization efforts continue, and “we are working on a language immersion preschool program that will also create an indigenous teacher track for educational strategies specific to our communities. So, in a sense, we are actually decolonizing the language and trying to heal so much pain.” 

My Name Is not Easy is really a political coming-of-age story; what starts out as Luke’s personal narrative ends as a community narrative. It’s only in the last pages that we’re told Luke’s Iñupiaq name. As Aamaugak reclaims his name, he, as the duck hunters of Barrow had, leads an act of civil disobedience that unites the students who, ultimately, come to realize that what brings them together is more powerful than what separates them.

The young students here are courageous. They’ve learned how to survive. “Yes, we learned,” Luke says. “We learned how not to talk in Iñupiaq and how to eat strange food and watch, helpless, while they took our brother away.” They’ve learned to withstand Father Mullen’s vicious beatings and “the words Father says that sting worse than the blows.” And they’ve learned, as Amiq and Sonny have, how to laugh softly, “when something bad happens and there’s nothing left to do but laugh.”

Here, Debby Dahl Edwardson relates the students’ stories with honesty and beauty—and without polemic, without hyperbole, without expository digressions, without the need that lesser writers seem to have to teach something. My Name Is not Easy is an antidote to Ann Rinaldi’s toxic My Heart Is on the Ground and all the other middle reader novels that romanticize “Eskimos” and “Indians,” and minimize the pain of the residential schools. Thank you, Debby.

We

were here.

We were always here,

hanging on where others couldn’t,

marking signs where others wouldn’t,

counting kin our own way. We

survived. The earth

can’t shake

us.

—Beverly Slapin

Recommended! RETHINKING POPULAR CULTURE AND MEDIA

Rethinking Schools is an excellent source of materials for anyone who looks critically at schooling. Their newest item is Rethinking Popular Culture and Media. It has outstanding essays including Herbert Kohl's "The Politics of Children's Literature: What's Wrong with the Rosa Park's Myth."

Essays specific to AICL's content are:

"Why I'm Not Thankful for Thanksgiving" by Michael Dorris
"A Barbie-Doll Pocahontas" by Cornel Pewewardy
"Human Beings are Not Mascots" by Barbara Munson

It also includes "Fiction Posing as Truth," the first short-essay I wrote with a group of Native and non-Native women who worked collaboratively on in-depth study of Ann Rinaldi's My Heart is on the Ground. 

There are forty-eight different essays. Forty eight! The book is priced at $18.95 and well worth it.

News on Scholastic's "Dear America" series

Are you a fan of the Dear America series of historical fiction diaries published by Scholastic?

Many of the students in my classes at the University of Illinois remember them fondly. And many are disillusioned when we spend time studying Ann Rinaldi's book in the series. That book is My Heart is on the Ground: The Diary of Nannie Little Rose, A Sioux Girl. Several years ago, I co-wrote an extended review of the book. Today, I reproduced that review for those of you who are having trouble locating it in the Way Back Machine (Internet Archive).

The news about the series is that Scholastic is relaunching it.

"Relaunching" means they're adding new books to the Dear America series, and, they're reissuing five of the older books. Rinaldi's is not among the five, and neither is the one about the Navajo Long Walk. I'm glad Scholastic decided not to reissue those two. I haven't read the five, so can't say (yet) whether or not the Native content in them (if there is any) is accurate.

For information about the launch, see "Fresh Approaches" at School Library Journal's website.

Review of Ann Rinaldi's MY HEART IS ON THE GROUND

Several years ago I co-wrote an extended review of Ann Rinaldi's My Heart is on the Ground. For those of you who are intimidated by (or otherwise having trouble finding it on) the Way Back Machine, I'm reproducing it here (with apologies for formatting problems I'm struggling to fix).  Immediately below the review essay is the accompanying essay "Literary License" or "Mutated Plagiarism." Until 2010, both were available on the Oyate website. 

___________

 

Introduction 

There is a story behind this review and how it came to be. In March, Debbie Reese (Nambè), a doctoral student at the University of Illinois, saw My Heart Is On the Ground in a local bookstore. She picked it up, skimmed it, and put it down in distaste. She walked away from it, took a few steps, and felt it couldn't be ignored. Reading through the book, she was outraged and called Beverly Slapin of Oyate in Berkeley and read excerpts to her. Beverly had already ordered a review copy from Scholastic and was not looking forward to reading it. A day later and equally outraged (or "stunned but not surprised" as she said), Beverly called it the "worst book she had ever read." Both women began talking about this book to colleagues.

Debbie contacted Barb Landis, a research specialist on the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Barb had also read the book and felt it was an outrageous depiction of a tragic period in Native American history. A series of internet and telephone discussions followed, and the circle came to include Marlene Atleo (Nuu-chah-nulth), Naomi Caldwell (Ramapough), Jean Mendoza, Deborah Miranda (Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen), LaVera Rose (Lakota), and Cynthia Smith (Creek). We quickly drew up a first draft of what came to be this review, with each of us contributing particular areas of knowledge about Carlisle Indian School, Lakota culture and history, and critical evaluation of children's books; and, a few days later, Debbie raised the issues it contained at a children's literature conference at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

As individuals, we write and speak in many voices, but we feel that our collective authorship of this piece adds to its strength. This piece represents a first-time collaboration among nine women. Some of us are Indian and some of us are not. Some of us are parents and grandparents and some of us are not. We all call ourselves teachers in some way; as well, we are learners. For purposes of practicality, we are listing our names alphabetically.

We do this for our children and grandchildren—Elizabeth, Carlos, Will, Michael, Michele, Stephanie, Miranda, Danny, Robert, Aimee, William, Thomas, Terri, Jamal, Kiana, Rose, Brittany, Shelena, Noah, Kevin, Tyson, Tara, Alexandria—and for their children and the next seven generations.

A Brief Digression about Pratt, Carlisle, and the Boarding School Experience

Because Captain Richard Henry Pratt figures so prominently in this book, it might be a good thing to stop for a moment and look at who he was and what his relationship was to Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Born in 1840, Pratt began his military career by enlisting in the Union army in 1861. As a young cavalry officer, Pratt commanded a regiment of Buffalo Soldiers. The Buffalo Soldiers were a Black regiment, that, along with hired Indian scouts, were used as mercenaries, Indian-fighters, for the benefit of white expansionism during the post-Civil War period. In 1875, Pratt was assigned the command of Fort Marion, the notorious prisoner-of-war camp in Saint Augustine, Florida, where Kiowa, Comanche, and Cheyenne prisoners were taken as hostages to ensure the subjugation of their people.

A decade later, Chiricahua Apache men, women, and children were also sent to Fort Marion, where the children were separated from their parents and sent on to Carlisle. It was at Fort Marion that Pratt began to formulate his early ideas about "civilizing" the Indians: he cut off their hair, replaced their traditional clothing with military uniforms, organized them into hierarchical-structured regiments, and taught them English. After enrolling several of the Fort Marion prisoners at the Hampton School for Negro Children in Virginia, Pratt recruited young children from the Standing Rock Agency and his ideas about Indian "education" began to take shape.

In 1879, Pratt founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which he ruled with an iron hand, his stated philosophy being "Kill the Indian and save the man." Carlisle, and the Indian boarding schools which followed, were set up to break spirits, to destroy traditional extended families and cultures, to obliterate memories and languages, and especially to make the children deny their Indianness, inside and out.

Sun Elk, from Taos Pueblo, told of his experiences at Carlisle in 1890:

"They told us that Indian ways were bad. They said we must get civilized. I remember that word, too. It means 'be like the white man.' I am willing to be like the white man, but I did not believe Indian ways were wrong. But they kept teaching us for seven years. And the books told how bad the Indians had been to the white men—burning their towns and killing their women and children. But I had seen white men do that to Indians. We all wore white man's clothes and ate white man's food and went to white man's churches and spoke white man's talk. And so after a while we also began to say Indians were bad. We laughed at our own people and their blankets and cooking pots and sacred societies and dances. I tried to learn the lessons—and after seven years I came home..." (Nabokov, 1991, p. 222).

During the period in which My Heart Is On the Ground takes place, Native people were confined to reservations and not allowed to leave without permission of the government-appointed Indian agent assigned to their reservations.

In 500 Nations (1994 ), Alvin Josephy writes:

"By the mid 1870s, reservations had become virtual prisons, ruled like empires by authoritarian agents who were given almost total power over the Indians. Shut inside the reservations, where outside eyes could not see them, the Indian peoples were subjected to unspeakable abuses. Housing monies were stolen, food rations were inadequate or spoiled, people were left to die without medical treatment or medicines, others were forcibly separated from their families to be punished without trial for real or trumped-up offenses, and individual Indians were frequently murdered.

"The Indians were at the mercy of a system of corrupt government officials and private suppliers and speculators, known collectively as the Indian Ring, who, taking advantage of public indifference, cheated the powerless tribes. Trapped on the reservations, without freedom and the ability to provide for themselves in time-tested fashion or make their complaints known, the Indian families lived in poverty and misery."

Many parents were coerced into sending their children to these early schools. Many times, children were kidnapped and sent far away to schools where they were kept for years on end. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Thomas Jefferson Morgan described his procedure for taking the children from their families. He said:

"I would...use the Indian police if necessary. I would withhold from [the Indian adults] rations and supplies...and when every other means was exhausted...I would send a troop of United States soldiers, not to seize them, but simply to be present as an expression of the power of the government. Then I would say to these people, "Put your children in school; and they would do it" (Josephy, 1994, p. 432).

Still, some parents found ways to avoid sending their children to the schools. In her autobiography, Helen Sekaquaptewa (Hopi) remembers that parents taught their children to play a game similar to hide-and-seek to avoid being taken away to boarding school. In Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families 1900-1940, Brenda J. Child (Ojibwe) reports:

"The most painful story of resistance to assimilation programs and compulsory school attendance laws involved the Hopis in Arizona, who surrendered a group of men to the military rather than voluntarily relinquish their children. The Hopi men served time in federal prison at Alcatraz" (p. 13).

Many children died at Carlisle, and they died running away from the institution. Child (1995), in her study of boarding schools, found that running away was a universal thread that ran across boarding schools and across generations. Physical and emotional abuse, including sexual abuse, is well documented in the stories of survivors of the boarding schools in the United States and Canada. Children were beaten and worse for not understanding English, for speaking their languages, for minor infractions of military rule, for running away, even for grieving. Many died of illnesses, many died of abuse, and many died of broken hearts.

It must be remembered also, that at this time, the Indian boarding schools were a cross-cultural experience for children who were taken from their parents and families, who were abruptly thrust into a foreign world, who were harshly punished for not knowing what was expected of them.

Lone Wolf (Blackfoot), tells this story:

"It was very cold that day when we were loaded into the wagons. None of us wanted to go and our parents didn't want to let us go. Oh, we cried for this was the first time we were to be separated from our parents. I remember looking back at Na-tah-ki and she was crying too. Nobody waved as the wagons, escorted by the soldiers, took us toward the school at Fort Shaw. Once there our belongings were taken from us, even the little medicine bags our mothers had given to us to protect us from harm. Everything was placed in a heap and set afire.

"Next was the long hair, the pride of all the Indians. The boys, one by one, would break down and cry when they saw their braids thrown on the floor. All of the buckskin clothes had to go and we had to put on the clothes of the White Man.

"If we thought that the days were bad, the nights were much worse. This was the time when real loneliness set in, for it was when we knew that we were all alone. Many boys ran away from the school because the treatment was so bad but most of them were caught and brought back by the police. We were told never to talk Indian and if we were caught, we got a strapping with a leather belt.

"I remember one evening when we were all lined up in a room and one of the boys said something in Indian to another boy. The man in charge of us pounced on the boy, caught him by the shirt, and threw him across the room. Later we found out that his collar-bone was broken. The boy's father, an old warrior, came to the school. He told the instructor that among his people, children were never punished by striking them. That was no way to teach children; kind words and good examples were much better. Then he added, 'Had I been there when that fellow hit my son, I would have killed him.' Before the instructor could stop the old warrior he took his boy and left. The family then beat it to Canada and never came back." (Nabokov, 1991, p. 220).

Part of the education students received at boarding schools included distorted instruction about who Indian people were. Chippewa student Merta Bercier wrote:

"Did I want to be an Indian? After looking at the pictures of the Indians on the warpath—fighting, scalping women and children, and Oh! such ugly faces. No! Indians are mean people—I'm glad I'm not an Indian, I thought." (Josephy, 1994. p. 434).

Many of those who survived Carlisle came out thoroughly brainwashed, and suffering from what we now call "post-traumatic stress syndrome."

"The point of brainwashing," Paula Gunn Allen (Laguna/Sioux) says,

"is to take away all sense of self, of community, of value, of worth, even of orientation, to be replaced by habits of mind and behavior that the captor finds acceptable. The boys and girls at Carlisle Indian School were trained to be cannon fodder in American wars, to serve as domestics and farm hands, and to leave off all ideas or beliefs that came to them from their Native communities, including and particularly their belief that they were entitled to land, life, liberty, and dignity.

"In a short time, the child comes to love and admire his captor,...a not uncommon adjustment made by those taken hostage; separated by all that is familiar; stripped, shorn, robbed of their very self; renamed.

"By and large the procedure was successful, although the legacy of damaged minds and crippled souls it left in its wake is as yet untold. Psychic numbing, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, battered wife syndrome, suicide, alcoholism, ennui—are there any names for psychecide? A century after..., the great-great grandchildren of decultured Indians struggle to find the world that was ripped away...by a deliberate, planned method euphemistically called education." (Allen, 1994, pp. 111-112).

 

A Brief Digression about Naming

When the administrators at Carlisle took the Indian children's names away, they knew what they were doing in the long, painstaking process of "killing the Indian." In taking away the linguistic Indian name—which had been a source of strength, cultural pride and psychic identity—and making the "new" names very common, written everywhere, used again and again, they in effect erased all spiritual aspects of the children's identities.

Traditionally, Indian children did not have their names spoken often. When someone was referred to, it was usually either by relationship or by a nickname. But the children knew who they were: they belonged to the name, and the name belonged to them, and to no other. Naming and self-naming was a fluid, ongoing process which changed throughout a person's life according to circumstance, personal experience, loss, triumph, foolishness, or social commentary. So a person could have (at least) a birth name, a baby name, several nicknames, a child name, a "young adult" name, an adult name, and an elder name. In addition, there might be a "secret" or ceremonial name, known only by the individual and the holy person who gave that name.

Compare all this, if you will, to the act of "re-naming" at Carlisle, as related by Ota K'te, Plenty Kill, who became known as Luther Standing Bear:

"One day when we came to school there was a lot of writing on the blackboards. We did not know what it meant.... None of the names were read or explained to us, so of course we did not know the sound or meaning of any of them.

"The teacher had a long pointed stick in her hand, and the interpreter told the boy in the front seat to come up. The teacher handed the stick to him, and the interpreter told him to pick out any name he wanted.... When the long stick was handed to him, he turned to us as much to say, 'Shall I—or will you help me—to take one of these names?' He did not know what to do for a time....

"Finally, he pointed out one of the names written on the blackboard. Then the teacher took a piece of white tape and wrote the name on it. Then she cut off a length of the tape and sewed it on the back of the boy's shirt. Then that name was erased from the board.... Soon we all had names of white men sewed on our backs." (Standing Bear, 1928, in Allen, 1994, pp. 116-117)

Once the children's naming in this random way became enforced, they were denied the ability to express their life stories in name, an act of independent, autonomous identity central to Native ways of being in the world. It was a small, but important, step in "killing the Indian."

With this history in mind, let us now turn to the children's book, My Heart Is On the Ground by Ann Rinaldi.

About the Dear America Series and My Heart is on the Ground

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data summary of My Heart Is On the Ground states, "In the diary account of her life at a government-run Pennsylvania boarding school in 1880, a twelve-year-old Sioux Indian girl reveals a great need to find a way to help her people."

In this account, Nannie Little Rose, who refers to herself as "Sioux," describes her life at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where she has been sent to be educated in the English language, and "American" customs and lifeways. Although determined to make her people proud, she finds this new world overwhelming—from its inside buildings and cumbersome dress, to the requirements that she take an English name, submit to having her hair cut, and adapt to a foreign culture. With the arrival of Nannie's friend, Lucy Pretty Eagle, the tenor of the story shifts. Lucy's propensity to lapse into self-induced trances causes her to be buried alive by the white people who mistakenly think she has died; and Nannie, who was not there to save her, suffers from not only grief but overwhelming guilt. But Nannie overcomes all of this, and adapt she does. Resolute in learning all she can in order to share her knowledge with her people, Nannie Little Rose meets every challenge and overcomes every obstacle, finally deciding to become a teacher "to help other blanket Indian children to learn."

All of the books in the "Dear America" series are identical in format. Each book begins with a title page, followed by "the diary." There is an epilogue, telling us what happened to the protagonist and her descendants afterwards. There is a Historical Note and a section of photographs, followed by a section called "About the Author," which gives a biographical sketch and then quotes directly from the author about her research. The fictional aspect is played down, with the dedication, acknowledgments, and CIP pages in the back.

The authors of the books are not identified on the book covers or on the spine. Each cover carries the "Dear America" logo, a small image of the protagonist, the book title, and a place/time note that indicates setting. Each book looks like a genuine diary. The books are attractive to look at and comfortable to hold. Special features include a sewn-in satin ribbon bookmark and cream-colored pages cut with a deckled edge that give them the look of quality diaries.

The portrait of the child on the cover of My Heart Is On the Ground, originally entitled "Cree Indian Girl, Little Star," is listed on the permissions page as "Indian Girl, Little Star." It was done by James Bama, a painter of romantic western and Indian subjects. The child in the portrait has her long hair parted and loose. She is wearing a headband, with two eagle feathers hanging straight down near her left temple. Her head is tilted forward, and her eyes are lowered. Behind her portrait is an underlay of an 1892 photograph of the Carlisle students, their hair cut short, in front of the school.

Discussions with child readers, teachers, and librarians reveal initial confusion about the fictive nature of this series. The epilogue, especially, continues to confound both professionals and young readers. Are these real diaries? Are these fictional diaries of real people? Are the epilogues, at least, real? Given the format of this series, it's hard to tell, unless one is an expert, a detective, or just naturally suspicious.

"Launched in September 1996, and with over 5 million books in print," according to Scholastic, "Dear America has become one of the most popular book series in America, charting regularly in the Top 5 on Publisher Weekly bestseller lists." The "Dear America" series clearly has mass appeal, and Scholastic aggressively markets these books to nine- to twelve-year-old girls. Marketing strategies and tie-ins include the "Dear America Desk Collection," a "new line of desk accessories for fans of the best-selling book series," and a series of six hour-long "Dear America" movies on HBO.

The "Dear America" website, also playing down the fact that this series is fiction, states:

"Dear America invites you into the personal experience of girls from different times in American History. The books and television show are inspired by real letters and diaries from girls who lived in extraordinary circumstances. You will experience firsthand what it was like to grow up and live in another time and place."

and

"Open Their Diaries.... Make History Your Own! Today's most distinguished authors lend their voices and talents to these moving narratives— presented in an intimate diary format—with each book extensively researched and inspired by real letters and diaries of the time."

My Heart Is On the Ground is described simply as, "A Sioux girl is sent to the Carlisle Indian School to help save her people."

The "Dear America" series continues to receive overwhelming critical acclaim. The Chicago Tribune notes that the "Dear America diaries represent the best of historical fiction for any age," and School Library Journal cites the books as "engaging and accessible."

Like the series, My Heart Is On the Ground has received extremely favorable reviews. School Library Journal says, "Rinaldi depicts widely divergent cultures with clarity and compassion.... The period, the setting, and Nannie herself all come to life. An excellent addition to a popular series."

And Booklist states,

"The entries are a poignant mix of past and present—Nannie's life with her family, encounters with other students, the horrific death of a friend, the efforts of both well-meaning and misguided adults. They burst with details of about culture and custom, adding wonderful texture to this thought-provoking book, which raises numerous questions as it depicts the frustration, the joy, and the confusion of one of yesterday's children growing up in two cultures."

 

The Review

"There I found the Indian burial ground, with dozens of white headstones bearing the names of the Native American children from all tribes who died while at the school. The names, with the tribes inscribed underneath, were so lyrical that they leapt out at me and took on instant personalities. Although many of these children attended Carlisle at dates later than that of my story, I used some of their names for classmates of Nannie Little Rose." (p. 195)

"Like Lucy Pretty Eagle, not all the children in the book were at Carlisle that first year. But like Lucy Pretty Eagle, their personalities came through to me with such force and inspiration, I had to use them. I am sure that in whatever Happy Hunting Ground they now reside, they will forgive this artistic license, and even smile upon it." (p. 196)

Individuals in the field of children's literature may dismiss our concerns and ask, "But is it a good book?" We think not. From a literary perspective, it lacks consistency and logic. As a work of historical fiction, it is rife with glaring factual errors. As a work of "multicultural" literature, it lacks authenticity.

 

Appropriation

Appropriation of our lives and literatures is nothing new. Our bodies and bones continue to be displayed in museums all over the U.S. and Canada. For the last hundred years, many of our traditional stories have been turned into books for children without permission and with little if any respect given to their origins or sacred content. Now, Rinaldi has taken this appropriation of Native lives and stories one step further. That she would take the names of real Native children from gravestones and make up experiences to go with them is the coldest kind of appropriation. These were children who died lonely and alone, without their parents to comfort them. They were buried without proper ceremony in this lonely and sad place. Native people who visit the cemetery today express a profound sense of sadness.

Rinaldi chose to name this book by appropriating a Cheyenne proverb that goes, "A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is done, no matter how brave its warriors nor how strong their weapons." In its original form, this statement is about the strength and courage of Indian women. In its original form, the phrase suggests total defeat, the conquering of a nation, the death of a way of life. Throughout this book, the child protagonist, Nannie Little Rose, uses the phrase "my heart is on the ground" whenever she happens to feel sad or upset. This is a trivialization of the belief system of a people.

 

Lack of Historical Accuracy

A basic criterion of historical fiction is that facts about people who actually lived and events that actually happened must be accurate, or, at least, any deviations clearly spelled out. This is especially important in books for young readers. Factual errors abound here; they are on nearly every page.

There was no such person as "Chief Sitting Bull of Cheyenne nation." (p. 14) His name was Tatanka Iotanka, whom the whites called Sitting Bull. He was a spiritual leader, not a chief; and he was Hunkpapa Lakota, not Cheyenne.

American Horse was not a "chief of the Red Cloud Sioux." (p. 20) He was a cousin to Red Cloud.

Spotted Tail did not take his band west to "be free." (p. 12) He left Whetstone Agency to get away from the alcohol that ran heavily there.

The Cheyenne and Oglala "Sioux" were not the only ones to fight Custer. (p. 50) Hunkpapa and Arapaho were also part of the battle.

The whites did not "give" the Lakota the Black Hills in a treaty (p. 12); by treaty, the people were able to retain a portion of what had been theirs for millennia. They are still fighting to keep it.

In a diary entry, composed only six months after her arrival at Carlisle, Nannie Little Rose writes in perfect English, but transcribes Red Cloud's speech into her diary, using stilted language instead of Red Cloud's own flowing and eloquent words (pp. 103-104).

Spotted Tail sent his sons to Carlisle because he knew it was going to be important for them to learn to speak, read and write English. He did not instruct his daughter, Red Road, to recruit children or to convince them to go. Yet in this book Red Road says, "You must learn the white people's ways. To help our people. You will see great trees with red apples. You will ride on the iron horse. You will wear a school dress." (p. 27) As Hyde (1979) notes:

"[B]efore he openly supported the plan and offered his sons as pupils, [he] stipulated that his daughter Red Road and her husband Charles Tackett should go with the children...and be paid a salary to act as their guardians.... [He] had the mentality to realize that these children, in faraway Pennsylvania, would be terribly frightened and unhappy if some adults of their own tribe were not there to protect and advise them." (p. 278)

When Spotted Tail visited Carlisle in 1880 and found his children, unhappy, in military uniform, drilling with rifles, he insisted that they return with him to Rosebud. In Rinaldi's rendition of this episode, Nannie writes: "We all knew Max and his three brothers did not wish to go, not even Paul. There was much screaming and crying. Red Road tried to calm her little brothers. Spotted Tail made them take off their citizens' clothing and put on their blanket clothing. He had to drag Max into the wagon." (p. 121) But according to historical accounts, the scene was just the opposite:

"Spotted Tail [talked] in private with his sons and the other boys from Rosebud and found that most of them were miserable and homesick.... None of them had learned English or to read or write." (p. 290) "[He] took all his children, apparently four sons, a grandson, a granddaughter, and another small boy he claimed as a close relative. He carried them off under guard of Sioux chiefs and headmen, daring Pratt to try and stop him. Pratt was too overwhelmed to attempt that. He had to guard the rest of his school, as there were indications that a general stampede for the train might take place. As it was, some of the heartbroken children who were being left at the school managed to steal away and hide themselves on the train.... At Harrisburg the train was searched again and a little Oglala girl (Red Dog's granddaughter) was found and dragged screaming back to captivity." (Hyde, 1979, pp. 292-293)

Rinaldi paints Pratt as a model of sweet reason, kind to the children, counseling them, talking with them about their futures: "Mr. Captain Pratt has been having private talks with every student in our class. He is making sure we are doing the right lessons for what we want to become." (p. 167) Again, written accounts paint a different picture:

"It seems curious that church people, humanitarians, and idealists should fall so much in love with Pratt. He was a quite ordinary army officer who had developed a marked ability for knocking the spirit out of the Indians and turning them into docile students who would obey all orders. Pratt was a domineering man who knew only one method for dealing with anyone who opposed his will. He bullied them into submission." (Hyde, 1979, p. 289)

All of the references to loaning money or having access to money are inaccurate. (p. 122) Money was not available to the children, no matter how much they had earned. It would have been highly unlikely for Nannie to have given her brother money without the approval of the administration.

Contrary to Rinaldi's statement in the historical note that "most of the graduates were able to earn a living away from the reservation," and "others went on to higher education," evidence points to the opposite. Earning a living "away from the reservation" meant going into Indian service and working on a reservation or agency— or in one of the dozens of off-reservation boarding schools modeled after Carlisle. And very few children graduated. Of the total population of 10,000, only 758 students—or fewer than 10%—graduated. More students ran away than graduated—1,758 runaways are documented.

Lack of Cultural Authenticity

The events in My Heart Is On the Ground are not plausible. In 1880, a Lakota child of the protagonist's age would have been well-educated by her aunties and grandmothers in Lakota tradition and lore, and ways of seeing the world and behaving in right relation to it. She would probably have had younger children to care for, as well as older sisters in her extended family, her tiospaye, to emulate.

A Lakota child in 1880 would not have referred to herself as "Sioux." (beginning at p. 6) It is a French corruption of an enemy-name used by the Ojibwe. She would have referred to herself by her band (Sicangu) or location (Spotted Tail Agency) or from a much smaller familial group, her tiospaye. And she would certainly not have referred to Indian men as "braves."

A Lakota child would not have been misinformed about her own people: "I come from a place called Dakota. My people belong to the Great Plains tribe." (p. 12) Nor would she have voiced stereotypes such as "Our men are very brave and honorable. Our women are noble." (p. 12) Nor would a Lakota child have used phrases such as "our men" and "our women"; she would probably have referred to people by their relationships, e.g., "our mothers" or "our grandfathers." Nor would she have used the French word "travois"—she would have used the Lakota word, or its English equivalent, pony-drag (p. 33).

If this Lakota child had in fact been given a diary (which is highly unlikely at Carlisle in 1880), she would probably have been much more circumspect in her writing, because she would have known that words have power, even written words. And she would have known that she could be severely punished for speaking her thoughts.

She would probably not have written about the wholesale slaughter of the buffalo, broken treaties, land theft, and "ann-u-itees" (p. 5 and throughout), nor would she have written disparagingly about the white people—including the teachers who would read this diary —who held the power of life and death over the children.

And a Lakota child certainly would not indict her own people for the theft of the land—"our chiefs have made large mistake in giving over our lands." (p. 5 and throughout)

Children who knew some English were used at Carlisle and other boarding schools to help control the other children. The respect they were taught at home for their elders was used against them in boarding school. They were not taught to be simple interpreters, or "Friends-To-Go-Between-Us" (p. 3 and throughout)—they were taught to be informants, and used as such.

Children were severely punished for speaking their own languages. They were beaten, confined, forced to eat lye soap, and worse. Although they often would speak their own languages in secret, perhaps whispering after lights-out, they would not have engaged in such risky behavior in the dining room or in front of Pratt. (p. 69)

Children might certainly have made fun of their teachers in secret, giving them names like "Miss Chipmunk," but again, they would not write negatively about white adults (in a place where there was no privacy of any kind), "She is bad to the eye. Fat and ugly." (p. 13)

On page 7, Nannie says, "The white people are very powerful. They know almost everything on the earth's surface and in the heavens also. So much to learn!" Here, the young reader is set up to believe that Lakota people had/have no scientific knowledge, no education system. By the age of 12, Nannie would have been educated by her elders in Lakota history, ways of the Earth, Stars, Thunders, Spirits, and healing plants. Although the wisdom of these things was passed down through the oral tradition, it does not diminish the wisdom of the people. To assume that, one week after arriving at Carlisle, Nannie would have negated all of her traditional teachings is unbelievable.

After a week at Carlisle, Nannie says, "I think Missus Camp Bell (a teacher) would make a good Sioux woman." (p. 11) Does "Missus Camp Bell" know about traditional ways of being? How could she know how to care for a traditional Lakota family if she is not connected to the culture? Could she do quillwork, find food, skin animals, cure skins, prepare meat, make traditional clothing?

Lakota children were taught to be deferential, cooperative, and respectful to their elders. A Lakota child would not have written about her mother, "My mother is jealous of Red Road because she is so young and pretty." (p. 11) Most plural marriages included sisters or cousins so that there was harmony in the family. Young girls learned quillwork from their mothers or aunties. Nannie would not have gone to Red Road's tipi to learn quillwork.

On page 4, Nannie says, "I have been on no battles or hunts. Of what worth am I, a girl of twelve winters?" A young Lakota girl feeling worthless? One of the seven sacred ceremonies involves a girl's passage. At 12, she would have certainly known her importance to her own family and community as both a cherished child (wakanyela, sacred being) and a new young woman.

Brothers and sisters have a special bond in Lakota society that was even more pronounced in this time period. They were taught to honor each other above all others, including spouses. That way, if there was a divorce, they could turn to their siblings for help. Given this bond, a Lakota girl would not criticize her brother this way: "He much time acts like a fool.... On the way here he made much trouble.... Whiteshield is always trouble" (pp. 9-10).

Moreover, Nannie would not have been shamed by her brother's doing a war dance in the yard: "You are no warrior.... A warrior does not shame his people." (p. 39) More than likely, she would have supported everything he did because he was being extremely brave in rebelling.

Nannie would not have considered her brother "spoiled" for having been honored for counting coup on a dead enemy at age 12. "Spoiled" is not a Lakota concept; the honoring of children is; and counting coup is counting coup, whether the enemy is dead or alive.

And, of course, Whiteshield would not have referred to his sister, or any girl, in a derogatory way, such as: "Only a stupid girl would say such a thing." (p. 39)

When Whiteshield, in an act of open rebellion, does a war dance, this is how Nannie describes it: "There was a strange figure carrying a torch and doing a dance. He was wearing only a breechclout and moccasins. In his belt he had a knife. Around and around he danced while he chanted a war song." (p. 37) This "strange figure" is her brother. He would be known to her and not be considered strange. If he were dancing a particular dance, she would name it and understand its significance. If he were singing, she would know the words and what the words meant. If all of their traditional clothing had been taken to be sold or destroyed as was the case at Carlisle, where did he get a breechcloth and moccasins? And where did he get a knife?

"He hates baths," Nannie says of her brother (p. 16). Traditionally, Indian people bathed every day. This has been documented. Whiteshield may have disliked bathing at the school, in tubs, which would have been far less sanitary than bathing in a lake or stream; but this suggests that Indians didn't like bathing when in fact they bathed much more regularly than the newcomers.

However, the rebellious Whiteshield finally does a brave deed, according to Nannie: He catches, and brings to the guardhouse, a "tramp" who crawled over the school wall, entered the grounds, and stole some wood (p. 82). For children who are raised to be generous above all things, it is highly unlikely that they would participate in capturing a poor homeless person. And, in any event, it would certainly not be seen as an act of bravery.

Nannie's father would not have asked her to do an act that would have been her brother's responsibility: "Then he says I must study and work and obey, and do one act of bravery.... I must bring him honor with this act. I ask him if he would also ask one act of bravery from my brother.... [H]e shakes his head and says...my brother is older, but I am wiser." (p. 30) It just would not have happened that way. Men and women have different roles in Lakota society; they are not subordinate, they are just different.

Nor would her father have ever suggested that she take on a vision quest (p. 30). This was and is a male activity. Women experience moontime (menstruation) and special ceremonies and practices to acknowledge them.

On page 31, Nannie says, "My grandmother...has powerful medicine. She has visions. She tells them to the shaman, our holy man, who explains it to our people." (p. 31) If a child's grandmother indeed had visions, she might or might not share them with a spiritual leader. But visions are a private thing; they wouldn't be "explained" to anyone. And "shaman" is not an Indian term.

Nannie would not have said, written, or thought: "I think sometimes that Pretty Eagle is going to be a shaman, even though she is a girl." (p. 33) Pretty Eagle is a child, and only post-menopausal women can attain the status of spiritual leader.

Later, Rinaldi has Nannie's grandma teaching Pretty Eagle to go into trances, which she practices, and sending her on a vision quest, where her "spirit helper" tells her to come to Carlisle and "show the children it is not wrong to be here..." (pp. 75-76). This passage suggests a Native spiritual affirmation of the mistreatment of Indian children at Carlisle.

On page 40, Nannie says, "We learned about the Devil in Sunday school. I think he is like some of our medicine men. He can change his shape if he wishes." (p. 40) To compare a respected and loved spiritual leader to the foreign Christian concept of "devil" is not something a Lakota child, steeped in Lakota cosmology, would do. More likely, she would compare the "devil" to an evil spirit.

On page 32, Nannie's mother asks, "What will you learn? To be more silly than you are?" Lakota children were, and are, treated with more respect than that. The Lakota did not/do not talk down to their children.

On page 33, Nannie says to Pretty Eagle, "We will gather all the wildflowers on the plains and put them in front of every tipi." This is not something that Lakota children would do. This would be considered wasteful and overlays a European perspective on Lakota daily life.

On page 58, Nannie is fasting "to find her spirit helper," something she, as a young woman, would not have done. When the doctor orders her to eat, she does, with gusto, then feels guilty: "I had two pieces [of chocolate cake]. How can I ever be pure enough to find my spirit helper when I love choc-o-late cake so?" This reflects an overlay of European-style guilt upon Lakota belief and ritual. Lakota children would have preferred a big bowl of soup, some fry bread and, for "dessert," a bowl of wojapi instead of chocolate.

Nannie Little Rose describes Sun Dance, the most sacred ceremony of the Lakota people, this way: "Part of me is missing. I feel like a young warrior in our Sun Dance, who has had the skin near his breasts cut and sticks put in the openings. The sticks are fastened to two ropes and I am left hanging, to show my bravery." (p. 29) This is an exoticized description that reflects a lack of understanding of Sun Dance, which is a thank-offering for the good of the community. In Sun Dance,

"participants offer Wakantanka the greatest gift they have, their flesh and blood.... The dancers move in a circle around and around and around. The circle represents our universe.... As the participants dance, they pray hard for their personal prayers and the prayers of the entire Lakota nation. Family members and friends stay nearby to offer their support and send their own prayers to Wakantanka." (Rose, 1999, pp. 34-35)

Moreover, a Lakota child in 1880 would not likely think about talking to strangers about (or writing about) Sun Dance in any way, nor would she obsess over it or dream about it (pp. 123, 127, 131).

And a young woman in art class would not be drawing pictures of Sun Dance, as Red Road does (p. 60). She just wouldn't.

Later in the diary (p. 44), Nannie Little Rose says, "Today we buried Horace Watchful Fox. The ground was hard and cold. I know some of the boys and girls wanted to tear their garments, cut their hair, cover themselves with mud, and slash at their arms because the Death Angel took Horace. But we were made to stand in citizens' clothing, clean and quiet." This is more a description of Rinaldi's fantasy than it is of a Lakota grieving ceremony. Moreover, it is unlikely that children of other nations would participate in a Lakota ritual, nor would children of that time period have engaged in the same kind of grieving ceremony as adults.

And Indian children would not be gathering evergreen and berries to make funeral wreaths (p. 43) unless they had been forced to by school officials.

The passage where Nannie describes her father shows a lack of understanding of the clothing traditional people wore: "He is wearing his chief's garments. A shirt with fringe and beaded bands on the shoulders and sleeves. Also his chief's leggings with beads, his bear claw necklace, and his braids are wrapped in otter tails. On his head is a stick headdress. I know he wears it to show the white people who we are. But no other men on the reservation wear their chief's clothing. I think my father wishes to be what he once was, maybe so." (pp. 29-30) Tribal leaders did not dress in headdress and regalia every day and every moment. And none of us can even guess as to what a "stick headdress" might be.

A Lakota child would not have been able to give away the possessions of a friend who has just died (p. 147). At home, it would have been the parents' responsibility; and here, at Carlisle, everything would have been taken away from the children anyway.

The characterization of Belle Rain Water is also confusing. Hopi children were, and are, taught to be quiet, respectful people. Hopi children in the foreign culture of a boarding school would be even more likely to keep to themselves or to try to seek out their relatives, rather than openly engage in conversation, not to mention arguments, with people outside their culture. For a Hopi child to be so belligerent and aggressive just does not fit with how her society would have raised her.

Later, Belle Rain Water, in apology, gives Nannie a prayer stick. A Hopi child would not have given a "prayer stick" to a Lakota child. (p. 145) First of all, sacred objects like these were/are not things children have or share, especially intertribally. Second (see above comment), all the children's things were taken away from them; they were not permitted to own anything of a cultural/spiritual nature. And finally, where would Belle Rain Water have gotten an eagle feather?

Wealth is not, and never has been, measured by the number of poles in a tipi! (p. 41) Wealth was measured by how much one gave away, not by how much one collected.

Among the Plains peoples, kinnikinnic ("kin-ni-kin-nic") is not tobacco. It is willowbark shavings often mixed with tobacco (p. 15).

Lakota people did not grow corn and wheat in 1880 (p. 62).

Stereotypes

A basic criterion of good children's literature is that it be free of stereotypes, but stereotypes abound in children's books about American Indian peoples. They are usually found in descriptive passages about Native characters. A few authors like Rinaldi take this one step further, by placing stereotypical language and images in an Indian child protagonist's own words.

Stereotypical Language

Throughout, Rinaldi uses stereotyped language to express Lakota (or "Indian") speech and thought patterns. These include over-emphasis on compound words (e.g., "Friend-To-Go-Between-Us," "Time-That-Was-Before," "night-middle-made") to "sound Indian," when there is no basis for such use. For instance, Rinaldi makes up the term "Friend-To-Go-Between-Us" as Nannie's word for "interpreter." Yet there is a Lakota word for "interpreter": iyeska, literally, one who speaks well. The original term meant "translator," since most translators at the time were the mixed-blood children of Indian women and white traders. Hanco'kan is the Lakota word for midnight.

Rinaldi also uses romantic-sounding metaphors throughout the book: "[T]he path between my mother and me is filled with rocks" (p. 27), "The council fire burns bright" (p. 21), [H]is spring is poisoned with anger" (p. 49), and, of course, the ever-present "My heart is on the ground." A favorite among us is this multi-metaphor: "And her words are not empty gourds, with nothing inside to quench our need, but full of meaning, from which I drink hope." (p. 29)

Throughout, Nannie romantically obsesses over the concepts "bravery," "honor," and "nobleness." Nannie also repeatedly uses the term "blanket Indians" as descriptive, rather than as a derogatory term used by whites at the time, to refer to traditional people.

As well, Nannie Little Rose speaks and writes in the stilted speech pattern we call "early jawbreaker" at the beginning of the book ("My teacher, Missus Camp Bell, say I must write in this book each day. She calls it die-eerie. It is the white man's talking leaves. But they talk not yet.... Teacher tells it that I know some English, that she is much proud of me, but wants be more proud."). (p. 3) Yet, in only ten months, Nannie is speaking and writing perfect, if not eloquent English, except for when she "lapses" back into "Indian" thought-patterns.

Stereotypical Nobility

Throughout, Nannie "explains" Lakota belief and ritual to the child reader, a transparent literary device we find annoying. As well, these "beliefs" are wrong. Besides the Sun Dance and mourning ritual, discussed above, there are many examples of this.

"With my people we believe that all things have a spirit. A war club has a spirit. A prairie dog has two spirits." (p. 81) This is a gross oversimplification of the belief that everything has life and purpose.

"In order to be brave I must have a spirit helper." (pp. 30-31) This obsession with bravery and "spirit helpers" runs throughout the book, and, again, is a gross oversimplification of the value of courage.

Nannie is obsessed with doing "a brave deed to bring honor to my people." This is practically the only thing she thinks about. At the end of the book, young readers are left to believe that her "brave deed" is to play the part of a pilgrim in the school's Thanksgiving play. In the scene which is supposed to show her victory, this little girl has successfully made the transition from Indian to white— she has become a clear victim of colonialism.

Stereotypical Treatment of Girls and Women

 

Derogatory references to girls and women abound in this book. Besides coming from Nannie herself (e.g., "Of what worth am I, a girl of twelve winters?"—p. 4), most of these references are mouthed by her brother, Charles Whiteshield ("only a stupid girl would say such a thing—p. 39, "women's dreams are worth nothing" —p. 67, "he says I am not a warrior, just a girl"— p. 105). This is not, and never has been, a Lakota way of expression; and is the opposite of honored brother-sister relationships (see above).

As well, traditional Lakota girls and women were not obsessed with appearance. That is not meant to say that they did not dress well. But concepts such as "fat and ugly" (p. 13) and "young and pretty" (p. 11) are not Lakota concepts.

Long hair had, and has, great significance for Lakota people. Traditionally, hair was/is cut only at a time of mourning. At Carlisle, children's braids were lopped off to frighten and subdue them, to "cut them off" from their people. When Pretty Eagle gets her hair cut, Nannie says, "Pretty Eagle is very frightened. I held her hand while they cut her hair. When it was cropped short, Pretty Eagle shook her head and only she laughed. "It feels so light," she said. "I think I will like it." (p. 71) This is not how Lakota children experienced this awful first assault. Often, they screamed and cried, and would be beaten for it.

In describing the practice of Lakota courtship, Nannie says, "If I came of age to wed before our ways were done, the man, he puts on his best robe and walk by our tipi. Then he come closer and grab of me. I would struggle, but he would win. If I like him I bring him water and ask him to come another time...." (pp. 5-6) This description is a mixture of TV-caveman ritual and fantasy. In any event, it is nothing like traditional Lakota courtship. By the age of 12, Nannie would probably have received traditional womanhood instruction from her elders in addition to having witnessed the courting process (and perhaps giggled about it many times with her girlfriends).

A Brief Digression about Lucy Pretty Eagle and Colonialism

We don't know very much about Lucy Pretty Eagle. We know that her Lakota name was Take the Tail, that she was the daughter of Pretty Eagle, that she came to Carlisle from the Rosebud Agency at age ten on March 9, 1884, and that she died four months later. Hers is the first gravestone in the Carlisle cemetery.

According to the author's note, "Some research indicates that Lucy may not have been dead when she was buried. She could have been in a self-induced trance, to try to appeal to spiritual powers for any number of reasons." (p. 180) So Rinaldi has taken a well-known ghost story that has been circulating around Carlisle for several decades, embellished it further with her own interpretation of Lakota cosmology, and crafted a children's book around this "event."

Whether Rinaldi did this unconsciously or not, an Indian girl being buried alive is a gruesome metaphor for colonization and the spiritual, cultural and psychic suffocation and trauma Indian children suffered at Carlisle and other boarding schools.

But this is much more than a metaphor: Nannie Little Rose, Lucy's friend, knew about the trance-like states and blames herself for not being able to tell the white people in charge that Lucy wasn't really dead. Here we have Indian children responsible for the death of Indian children— after all, the white people had just made an "honest mistake." And the story, crafted this way, allows both Rinaldi and the non-Native reader to avoid the issues and erase the real reasons that many, many children died at the boarding schools: malnutrition, tuberculosis, pneumonia, smallpox, physical abuse (including sexual abuse), and—no less importantly—broken hearts and spirits, and loneliness.

Moreover, the "trance-mistaken-for-death" scenario that Rinaldi uses here again perpetuates the stereotype that Indians died or were decimated because they were Indians: unable to adapt, unwilling to change, and— worst of all—physically and emotionally different from white people. A possible translation of this scene: Lucy is killed, not by the tragic boarding school experience, not by the loss of parents and homeland, not by inadequate diet or disease—but by her own "Indianness." In other words, Indian people have only themselves to blame for their own demise. They just couldn't become civilized—it was inherently, genetically impossible.

It is entirely possible that Rinaldi may not even be conscious of what she's done. Such stereotypical colonialist attitudes as expressed in this book may be so embedded in the American psyche that we often miss it even at its most blatant. We call this to the non-Native reader's attention because it is easy to miss otherwise, this attitude that colonization is "meant to be" or "inevitable." It is neither.

A Brief Digression about Perspective

 

In many ways, My Heart Is On the Ground reflects what can go wrong when a non-Native author writes about Native cultures. One of the more controversial questions in literature is who should be writing books that include characters or themes related to members of a particular ethnic, racial, or religious group. Those who prefer that such books be written from within communities perhaps justifiably fear exploitation, misrepresentation, or having their voices pre-empted. However, some non-Indians have written quality books about Native peoples, histories, and cultures, so it won't be argued here that only Native authors can write Native-themed stories.

While many fine books are written by authors outside of a community who do their homework, the voice of an insider still offers a unique perspective that is in many ways a rare gift to young readers. We sometimes see stories from those who have married Native people, borne Native children, been adopted into Native families, or known Native people who called them "friend." Even more directly, we sometimes see stories by Native people, stories that have been passed down or reshaped to reflect family and personal histories.

Indeed, books written by Native authors do not usually contain conventions that are typically used to signal the book as being about a Native character. For example, characters in books written by Native authors don't speak in guttural English. They don't act like savages and they don't seem like mystical creatures. Rather, they are often eloquent speakers. But this eloquence may not fit the non-Native reader's (or publisher's) expectations of how Natives speak, so they may reject the book as not being "authentic enough."

But on more subtle grounds, Indian writers have to do their research as well. A story from one's great uncle may actually be more authentic than anything written by someone with a Ph.D. in anthropology. A childhood experience may lend itself to a scene, even a whole story. Not everything crafted by Native writers will necessarily present the most popular or desirable or comfortable picture, even within their communities, certainly to the mainstream. Although each story will have the individual storyteller's own vision and voice, they are all taking care to fulfill their responsibility.

An outside researcher, however careful, who goes on to write a story based entirely on written words—especially the words of another outsider—rather than experiences may craft a book that few would hesitate to share with children. However, these authors may unknowingly mimic misconceptions or stereotypes inherent in the research material, and still others may "whitewash" history to make the non-Native audience more comfortable with issues like stolen land and forced assimilation.

Indian voices are grossly underrepresented in books with Native characters and themes. It is common that African-American literature classes or book lists feature a number of books by African-American authors and illustrators. It is common that Asian-American and Latino literature classes and book lists feature a number of books by Asian Americans and Latinos. It is also common that Native-American literature classes and book lists often fail to feature a single title by any person with any sort of tie to a Native community. The proportional disparity is staggering. A child could read literally hundreds of books with Native characters and not one by anyone who had ever so much as shaken hands with a real live Indian.

Final Comments

 

Despite all the documented horrors of the "noble experiment" that was Carlisle, My Heart Is On the Ground casts the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in a positive light as though it were a good thing. Rinaldi even says in her author's notes, "Those first Sioux children who came to Carlisle could not have been happy there. But it was their only chance for a future." (p. 177)

The legacy of Carlisle and the other Indian boarding schools—this "future"—is a legacy of hopelessness and despair, of alcoholism and other substance abuse, suicide, dysfunctional parenting; an open, gaping century-long wound that will take many more years for the Indian communities all over the U.S. and Canada to heal.

Yet, the only "bad" characters in this book are Indian people —Belle Rain Water, a jealous, spiteful Hopi child, who eventually comes around to seeing the error of her ways; Charles Whiteshield (Nannie's brother), a "renegade" who "acts like a fool" and makes "much trouble," and whose behavior "shames" Nannie, until he eventually comes around to seeing the error of his ways; Goodbird (Nannie's mother), who is jealous and spiteful; White Thunder (Nannie's father), who ignorantly tries to maintain the old ways; and Spotted Tail, who takes his children back, even though they don't want to go home.

Nowhere in this book is to be found the screaming children, thrown onto horse-drawn wagons, being taken away from their homes. Nowhere is to be found the desperately lonely children, heartbroken, sobbing into the night. Nowhere is to be found the terrified children, stripped naked and beaten, for trying to communicate with each other and not understanding what was expected of them. Nowhere is to be found the unrelenting daily humiliation, in word and deed, from the teachers, matrons and staff. Nowhere is to be found the desperate runaways, lost, frozen in the snow. Nowhere to be found is the spirit of resistance. Nowhere.

Resistance among the Indian students was deep, subtle, long-lasting and valiantly carried on for as long as boarding schools existed. Besides running away, this resistance took many forms—physical, spiritual, intellectual. Children destroyed property and set fires. They refused to speak English. They subverted teachers' and matrons' orders whenever they could. But except for Charles Whiteshield's "war dance," which is presented as a shameful thing, that resistance—and the courage it represents—receives no attention in this book. As in Francis LaFlesche's The Middle Five and Basil H. Johnston's Indian School Days, an Indian author would have made this resistance a central part of such as story.

To those who would argue that "it is possible" that a Native child might have had Nannie Little Rose's experiences, the overwhelming body of evidence—written and oral—suggests otherwise. The premise of this book—that a Native child would come in and, within a period of ten months, move from someone who reads and writes limited English and has a totally Indian world view to someone who is totally fluent in a language that is foreign to her and totally assimilated to a foreign culture—and be better for the experience—is highly unlikely. Brainwashing did not come readily. Brainwashing took time.

Given the marketing and distribution forces behind My Heart Is On the Ground, we know that it will probably be more widely read than any other book about the boarding school experience. The book adds to the great body of misinformation about Native life and struggle in the United States and Canada. This one book epitomizes the utter lack of sensitivity and respect that has come to characterize the vast majority of children's books about Native Americans. Non-Native readers of My Heart Is On the Ground will continue to be validated in whatever feelings of superiority they may have; Native children will continue to be humiliated.

Rinaldi goes on to say in the author's note that "I am sure that in whatever Happy Hunting Ground they now reside, they will forgive this artistic license, and even smile upon it." (p. 196) This is the epitome of white fantasy: that Indian people will forgive and even smile upon white people, no matter the atrocities—past and present.

---

References

Paula Gunn Allen (Laguna/Sioux), editor, Voice of the Turtle: American Indian Literature 1900-1970. Random House, 1994.

Bell, Genevieve, Telling Stories Out of School: Remembering the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879-1918. PhD Thesis, Stanford University, 1998.

Brenda J. Child (Ojibwe), Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940. University of Nebraska, 1998.

George E. Hyde, Spotted Tail's Folk: A History of the Brulè Sioux. University of Oklahoma, 1979.

Basil H. Johnston (Ojibwe), Indian School Days. University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.

Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., 500 Nations. Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

Francis LaFlesche (Omaha), The Middle Five: Indian Schoolboys of the Omaha Tribe. University of Nebraska Press, (1900), 1978.

Peter Nabokov, Native American Testimony. Viking 1978, revised 1991.

LaVera Rose (Lakota), Grandchildren of the Lakota. Lerner, 1999.

---

For additional comments about Ann Rinaldi's My Heart is on the Ground, see the accompanying essay “Literary License” or “Mutated Plagiarism”?

---

The contributors
Marlene Atleo (Nuu-chah-nulth), is a mother and grandmother, adult educator and doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia investigating transformational learning strategies in First Nations narratives.

Naomi Caldwell (Ramapough), is a mother, doctoral candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, and past president of the American Indian Library Association.

Barbara Landis is a mother, and the Carlisle Indian School Research Specialist for the Cumberland County Historical Society in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Jean Mendoza is a mother and doctoral student in early childhood education at the University of Illinois. She has been teaching children for more than 20 years.

Deborah Miranda (Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen/Chumash) is a poet, mother, and doctoral candidate in English at the University of Washington. Her article, "A String of Textbooks: Artifacts of Composition Pedagogy in Indian Boarding Schools" is forthcoming in Journal of Teaching Writing.

Debbie Reese (Nambè), is a mother and doctoral student at the University of Illinois studying representations of Native Americans in children's literature. She is a regular reviewer for Horn Book, and her articles include "Look Mom, It's George and He's a TV Indian!" and "Teaching Young Children about Native Americans."

LaVera Rose (Lakota), is a mother and grandmother, an archivist at the South Dakota State Historical Society, and author of Grandchildren of the Lakota and Meet the Lakota People/Oyate Kin.

Beverly Slapin is a mother, co-founder and executive director of Oyate, co-editor, with Doris Seale (Santee/Cree), of Through Indian Eyes: The Native Experience in Books for Children and co-author of How to Tell the Difference: A Guide to Evaluating Children's Books for Anti-Indian Bias.

Cynthia Smith (Creek) is a reviewer of Native-themed children's books.

______________________________

“Literary License” or “Mutated Plagiarism”?

Additional Comments about Ann Rinaldi’s My Heart is on the Ground

Without attribution or acknowledgment, Ann Rinaldi has lifted phrases, ideas, and entire passages from several books, and used them in My Heart Is On the Ground. (Scholastic, 1999). This may or may not be legal, but it is certainly not moral. We want people to be aware of what Ann Rinaldi has done.

The books include the following:

Francis La Flesche (Omaha), The Middle Five: Indian Schoolboys of the Omaha Tribe. ©1900 by 

Francis La Flesche. Lincoln: University of Nebraska (1978)

Luther Standing Bear (Lakota), My People the Sioux. ©1928 by Luther Standing Bear. Lincoln: University of Nebraska (1975)

Zitkala-Sa (Dakota), American Indian Stories. ©1921 by Gertrude Bonin. Lincoln: University of Nebraska (1985)

Here are three pairs of writing, two each of the same event. The first of each pair is an event taken from an Indian person’s published autobiography. The second part is a rewrite of that event, using the voice of a fictional protagonist, a 12-year-old Lakota child, and written by Ann Rinaldi, a non-Indian author.

Some questions to think about: How were the passages changed to fit into this fictional voice? What are the effects of these changes? How have the ethics, principles and behaviors of the original writers been changed in the rewritten passages? And finally, is this “literary license” or “mutated plagiarism”?

 

pair 1

“It did not occur to me at that time that I was going away to learn the ways of the white man. My idea was that I was leaving the reservation and going to stay away long enough to do some brave deed, and then come home again alive. If I could just do that, then I knew my father would be so proud of me.” (My People the Sioux, p. 128)

“Then he says I must study and work and obey, and do one act of bravery. Then come home and tell him about it. I must bring him honor with this act.” (My Heart Is On the Ground, p. 30)

 

pair 2

“The ‘Mericans are awfully fond of tea, and when they saw they’d have to pay the trader and the king, too, for their tea, they got mad; and one night, when everybody was asleep, they painted up like wild Indians, and they got into a boat and paddled out to the tea ship and climbed in. They hollered and yelled like everything, and scared everybody; then they spilted the tea into the ocean….Well…the old king sat still for a long time, then he said to his soldiers, you go and fight those ‘Mericans. And they did fight, and had the Rev’lution. That war lasted eight years, and the king’s soldiers got licked. Then the ‘Mericans made General George Washington their President because he couldn’t tell a lie.” (The Middle Five, pp. 51-52)

“Today is a holiday. The birthday of the white people’s great father, George Wash-ing-ton. Gray Beard told us about the Boston tea party. The Mericans dressed like Indians and threw all the tea in the water. Then the English king got very angry and sat for a long time. Then he told his soldiers, go and fight those Mericans. Bring me their scalps. So his warriors went out and there was a rev-o-lu-tion. Wash-ing-ton was a great chief of the Mericans. The war lasted eight years and the soldiers of the king lost their scalps and the Mericans won and made Wash-ing-ton their great father because he could not tell a lie.” (My Heart Is On the Ground, p. 55)

 

pair 3

“With fire in my heart, I took the wooden tool that the paleface woman held out to me. I stood upon a step, and, grasping the handle with both hands, I bent in hot rage over the turnips. I worked my vengeance upon them! I saw that the turnips were in a pulp, and that further beating could not improve them; but the order was “Mash these turnips,’ and mash them I would! I renewed my energy; and as I sent the masher into the bottom of the jar, I felt a satisfying sensation that the weight of my body had gone into it. Just here a paleface woman came up to my table. As she looked into the jar, she shoved my hands roughly aside. I stood fearless and angry. She placed her red hands upon the rim of the jar. Then she gave one lift and stride away from the table. But lo! the pulpy contents fell through the crumbled bottom to the floor! She spared me no scolding phrases that I had earned. I did not heed them. I felt triumphant in my revenge, though deep within me I was a wee bit sorry to have broken the jar. As I sat eating my dinner, and saw that no turnips were served, I whooped in my heart for having once asserted the rebellion within me.” (American Indian Stories, pp. 60-61)

“Today, I was so angry I drove my wooden spoon through the bottom of a jar of turnips. At our table we had no turnips for supper. Everyone likes turnips. I feel bad that I did this thing.” (My Heart Is On the Ground, p. 88)

–Beverly Slapin