Established in 2006 by Dr. Debbie Reese of Nambé Pueblo, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books. Dr. Jean Mendoza joined AICL as a co-editor in 2016.
A reader wrote to ask me about The Spirit Trackers by Jan Bourdeau Waboose (illustrations by Francois Thisdale). Here's the description:
Cousins Will and Tom have always wanted to become Trackers just like their uncle.
While spending time with Uncle he shares the story of the Windigo with the boys. A story that seems to be coming true when Will and Tom hear strange noises outside of their bedroom window. And then they find the huge tracks in the snow. It has to be the Windigo - the Wandering Night Spirit of Winter!
And the boys know what good trackers would do so they follow the trail deep into the dark forest to uncover the mystery.
Young readers will be able to improve their tracking skills as they find clues hidden in the illustrations along with Will and Tom.
I like Waboose's other books very much, and thought I'd be using a "recommended" label for this one. But then I got to the page where the boys are outside about to follow that trail into the forest. They're afraid but intrigued, too.
The cousins stand like totems.
Totems? That threw me. I asked a lot of Ojibwe friends and colleagues in Education and English, and they all thought it an odd word to use there. The cousins are standing, still. Does "totems" gesture somehow to totem poles? I didn't like Thisdale's illustrations, either. There is a new age quality to them that I don't like at all. Published in 2017 by Fifth House Publishing, I do not recommend The Spirit Trackers.
Update: April 17, 2018
Last night (April 16, 2018), Jace Weaver, the director of the Institute of Native American Studies at the University of Georgia, posted a comment about John Sedgwick's Blood Moon to his Facebook page. With his permission, I am quoting parts of it.
Dr. Weaver began with this word: "Warning." He then said that the publisher, Simon and Schuster, had asked him and Colin Calloway (a professor of history and Native American Studies at Dartmouth) to vet Blood Moon. It was already typeset in galleys, and, Dr. Weaver said, "it was horrible." It had "numerous factual errors" and "faulty interpretations." It bought into and trafficked in "the worst stereotypes." Both professors provided detailed readers' reports, but Sedgwick (the author) did not correct all the factual errors, and he "did nothing about tone or stereotypes."
Dr. Weaver's post ends with this:
"The worst of it is, we're thanked as 'two of the most authoritative contemporary scholars of Native Americans.' Arg! Avoid this book!"
Here's a screen cap from the book:
See that? Sedgwick writes that he owes Weaver and Calloway "great debts." I think he owes them an apology. And that last line "I take full responsibility for any mistakes that remain" is Sedgwick's shield. It is a disclaimer that tells us, without telling us, that he ignored some of their input. His use of "mistakes" is also worth thinking about. Factual errors are one thing but the tone that Weaver objected to? That sort of thing can be put forth as point of view. What Weaver and Calloway (and me, below) say is derogatory stereotyping, Sedgwick can say he sees it differently. Someone once told me that what I call a negative stereotype can be seen by someone else as a heroic image.
Based on what Weaver said in his Facebook post and what I saw of the book, John Sedgwick's Blood Moon: An American Epic of War and Splendor in the Cherokee Nation is definitely in the Not Recommended category.
Because of Simon and Schuster's marketing budget, it is going to be crucial that we use word-of-mouth to let others know there are problems in this book. It should not be used in high school classrooms.
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Below is my original post, published on April 12, 2018.
A reader wrote to ask if I've read John Sedgwick's Blood Moon: An American Epic of War and Splendor in the Cherokee Nation. It isn't for children or young adults, but, the reader notes, some people might get it for a young adult or a young adult collection in a library.
I haven't read it. I can make some initial observations, based on how I go about analyzing books. I'm using what I see in the preview from Google Books for some of these observations and I'm using information made available about the book, including the book trailer at the Simon and Schuster website. Let's start with that video.
Sedgwick begins with "who knew" in an astonished tone, that Native people fought in the Civil War. Whenever someone uses that "who knew?" phrase that way, we are told a lot about that person. In this case, Sedgwick means that he didn't know, and that people he knows didn't know. From that body of people who did not know, he utters the "who knew" phrase. You know who knew? Cherokees. They know. So do a lot of Native people, including those of us who read beyond the master narratives of history. Then, he talks about how people know about the Trail of Tears, but that they don't know about a disagreement within the Cherokee Nation, about removal. That's what his book is about.
Now, the book itself:
First: Is Sedgwick (the author) Cherokee? Answer: No. Does that mean he cannot write this book? Obviously, no. The book is out there, from a major publisher. Does it mean he should not write the book? Again, no. Anyone can write about anything they want to. The significant questions are these: are the contents of the book accurate? Who vetted the book? When/if I get the book, will I find that Sedgwick worked with the Cherokee Nation on this book? Was their feedback used? If their feedback was ignored (that happens in children's lit, for sure), it sure would be good to know, but, that sort of feedback isn't usually provided. Sometimes, it comes out, post-publication.
Second: What is Sedgwick's source for what he says about a blood moon? In his "A Note on the Title" page, he writes this:
A blood moon is a rare form of lunar eclipse. For the Cherokee, any vanishing from the night sky was troubling, as it threw their cosmos out of order. A blood moon was especially terrifying, since the moon did not disappear, but turned bloodred. Meteorologists now see that a blood moon is actually lit by an unusual sunset glow picked up from the earth's atmosphere as the sunlight brushes past. But the Cherokee considered the sight an ill portent. The moon was red with rage over what lay below.
Some will find that note compelling. Obviously, Sedgwick is taken with it. He used it as the title and framework for his book. If I was doing an in-depth analysis, I'd try to find out what his source is. Is there a source for it in the back matter of the book? Maybe. If there is, I'd verify that source, too. There's a whole of of "knowledge" out there that gets put forth as being from this or that unnamed Native person that is actually some of the White Man's Indian imaginings. The note is also one that puts one peoples ways of viewing the world into a framework that casts them as simple, primitive, superstitious, etc. Opposite of them are meteorologists. Science. There's a whole lot of denigration and misrepresentation going on in that sort of binary!
Third: What is Sedgwick's orientation to Indigenous peoples? The introduction gives us a lot of insight to it. He writes:
While the Indians were skilled as scouts, trackers, horsemen, and sharpshooters, their greatest value may have been their fighting skills. Shaped by a warrior culture, most were used to violence, and they took to battle. Their long black hair spilling out from under their caps, their shoddy uniforms ill-fitting, their faces painted in harsh war colors, they surged into battle with a terrifying cry, equipped not just with army-issue rifles but also with hunting knives, tomahawks, and often, bows and arrows. Even when mounted on horses, they exhibited a deadly aim, and their arrows sank deep, leaving their victims as much astonished as agonized. They'd close fast, whip out a tomahawk to dispatch their man, then pounce on the corpse with a bowie knife to shear off a scalp to lift to the sky in triumph.
Sedgwick says they were "shaped by a warrior culture." I think Sedgwick's thinking is shaped by that master narrative and its stereotypes. Shall we count them?
warriors
long black hair
face paint
terrifying (war) cry
knives, tomahawks, bows and arrows
scalping
A few pages later, I see "Great Spirit" and another problematic binary (would they "run to the wild" or to the "bright promise of industrial civilization").
Having read that much, I have serious doubts about this book. Sounds to me like stereotypes form the foundation of how he's writing. If I get the book and read it, I'll be back with a review. In the meantime, I welcome your thoughts.
This particular "Debbie--have you seen" is here, not because someone asked me about it, but because it was recommended on child_lit a few days ago because it has an Ojibwe character.
The character in The Case of the Portrait Vandal is "Raining Sam" as shown in the synopsis:
There's a vandal in the Capitol City Museum of American History, and he or she is intent on defacing priceless artifacts. Raining Sam, the son of the Head of Educational Programs and local Ojibwe tribe member, is determined to get to the bottom of things before anything else can be destroyed. But when Raining himself is considered a suspect, he and his friends must race against the clock to unmask the real culprit and solve the museum mystery before it's too late.
The name, "Raining Sam" and then "Raining" as his first name throughout is a bit of a stumbling block for me. But I do like this part about Wilson (Raining's friend):
Wilson knew about Raining's interest in American history, especially the history of his own people, the Ojibwe. The tribe had been on the continent known as North America a lot longer than some other people.
I also like the part where Wilson can tell that their two friends are approaching because Wilson knows what their footsteps sound like (p. 15):
"Amazing," said Raining, standing up from his spot at the table. "And people think we're supposed to be the trackers." It bugged Raining that people he met still assumed certain things about North America's indigenous people."
The book is part of a mystery series starring four kids whose parents work in museums. Here's a screen capture of them. On the far left is Wilson. Next to him is Amal. By her is Clementine, and, that's Raining on the far right.
Published in 2015 by Capstone, there's a copy of The Case of the Portrait Vandal on the new books shelf in my local library. I'll be back when I get a chance to read it. It
In his July/August 2009 editorial in Horn Book Magazine, Roger Sutton poses a question about eligibility for the Coretta Scott King Award. I was looking at Horn Book's articles online, trying to find Neil Gaiman's speech (the one he gave when he won the 2009 Newbery). I was doing that because I'd just read an interview with Gaiman, in which he said something that surprised me, and I wondered if he repeated it in his Newbery speech. He did not. Here's what he said in the interview:
"The great thing about having an English cemetery is I could go back a very, very, very long way. And in America, you go back 250 years (in a cemetery), and then suddenly you’ve got a few dead Indians, and then you don’t have anybody at all, unless you decide to set it up in Maine or somewhere and sneak in some Vikings.”
I blogged that remark and provided some context for how I interpret it, too. [Update, April 18, 9:00 PM---Mr. Gaiman responded, clarifying his remarks, so please do go read what he said.] I'm reading his words after having spent the better part of the previous 24 hours studying (again) the ways that American Indians appear in Elizabeth Bird's Top 100 Children's Novels. I conclude that the ignorance on display in the Top 100 novels is alive and well---frighteningly so---in Mr. Gaiman. While he exhibits ignorance about American Indians in that remark, his book (at #80 on the list) does not actually have anything to do with American Indians. Neither does L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900. It is #40 on the list. Baum, however, was outright racist in the editorials he wrote for the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer. Here's an excerpt from the editorial dated December 20, 1890:
"The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are. History would forget these latter despicable beings, and speak, in later ages of the gory of these Grand Kings of forest and plain that Cooper loved to heroism."
Turning, now, from ignorance and racism of authors, to portrayals of American Indians in Elizabeth Bird's Top 100 Children's Novels. Here's my list (see notes at bottom):
#99 - The Indian in the Cupboard, by Lynne Reid Banks, published in 1980
#94 - Swallows and Amazons, by Arthur Ransome, published in 1930
#90 - Sarah, Plain and Tall, by Patricia MacLachlan, published in 1985
#87 - The View from Saturday, by E. L. Konigsburg, published in 1996
#85 - On the Banks of Plum Creek, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, published in 1937
#78 - Johnny Tremain, by Esther Forbes, published in 1943
#68 - Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech, published in 1994
#63 - Gone Away Lake, by Elizabeth Enrich, published in 1957
#61 - Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli, published in 2000
#59 - Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke, published in 2003
#50 - Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O'Dell, published in 1960
#46 - Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls, published in 1961
#42 - Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, published in 1935
#41 - The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare, published in 1958
#34 - The Watsons Go to Birmingham, by Christopher Paul Curtis, published in 1995
#31 - Half Magic, by Edward Eager, published in 1954
#25 - Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, published in 1868/1869
#24 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling, published in 2007
#23 - Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, published in 1932
#17 - Maniac Magee, by Jerry Spinelli, published in 1990
#16 - Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh, published in 1964
#13 - Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson, published in 1977
#1 - Charlotte's Web, by E. B. White, published in 1952
If I studied the Library of Congress info for these books, I think only one---Julie of the Wolves---would be categorized in some way as having to do with Native people. None of the authors above is known to be an American Indian, with the possible exception of Wilson Rawls. He said his mother was part Cherokee. He does not assert that identity for himself.
In a video interview, Elizabeth Bird talked about the lack of diversity on her list. There, she talks about how she developed the list. It was a tremendous amount of work, and I'm grateful to her for doing it. Her list provides us with a snapshot that is worth mulling over, for lots of reasons. My particular lens, of course, is American Indians. At 2:48, Elizabeth notes that the list lacks diversity.
It lacks diversity, I agree. Sherman Alexie, Joseph Bruchac, Louise Erdrich, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Richard Van Camp---none of the more successful Native writers are on the list. But overall, it does not lack for portrayals of American Indians.
I say that in jest, of course, because most of those portrayals are in some way, stereotypical or biased. If you are a librarian, and you use this list to build your collection, you will not be providing your readers with a single worthy image of American Indians. A few of them are innocuous---like the Indian blanket in Charlotte's Web---but most are problematic. From "Honest Injun" to sitting "Indian style" to hunting Indians, there's a lot to say.
In the coming days I will work with my notes and develop some observations, but I am pasting the notes below and invite your thoughts. (I apologize in advance for inconsistencies in style and format of presentation. Some of what you'll find was posted before to American Indians in Children's Literature.) If you use some of this info for something you write, please cite this blog as the source of your information.
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DEBBIE REESE'S NOTES ON PORTRAYALS OF AMERICAN INDIANS IN ELIZABETH BIRDS TOP 100 CHLDREN'S NOVELS
Number 99 is The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks, published in 1980. See Feb 10, 2010.
Number 94 is Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransom, published in 1930.
On page 16, Roger is "keeping a sharp lookout lest he should be shot by a savage with a poisoned arrow from behind a tree."
On page 137, the children come across what they call a "Red Indian wigwam" from which emerges "a very friendly savage". Ransom's use of "Red Indian" was (is?) common in the United Kingdom.
On page 231, Nancy shouts "Honest Injun" .
On page 267, Nancy writes that John had "come at risk of his life to warn you that savage natives were planning an attack on your houseboat."
I think I'll have to find some time to study Swallows and Amazons....
Number 93 is Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink, published in 1935. I wrote about it on Feb 10, 2010.
Number 90 is Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan, published in 1985. On page 17 is "Indian paintbrush".
Number 87 is The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg, published in 1996. Early in the book, there is a discussion of what constitutes diversity. Mrs. Olinski tells Mr. Rohmer that the Academic Bowl team includes "a Jew, a half-Jew, a WASP, and an Indian." (p. 22). Mr. Rohmer tells her the first three don't count, and that the proper term for the Indian is "Native American". (The Indian on the team is East Indian.)
Number 85 is On the Banks of Plum Creek, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The word "Indian" appears 12 times in the book, most of them about their time in Indian Territory.
On page 143, Mary tells Laura to keep her sunbonnet on or "You'll be as brown as an Indian, and what will the town girls think of us?"
On page 218, Laura says "I wish I was an Indian and never had to wear clothes!" Course, Ma chides her for saying that, especially for saying it "on Sunday!"
I've written a lot about Wilder's books (see set of links at the bottom of this page), specifically, Little House on the Prairie, which I expect will be in the top tier of Elizabeth's survey.
Number 78 is Johnny Tremain, written by Esther Forbes, published in 1943. I'm going to have to reread that one... I pulled it up on Google books and it looks like Forbes may have done a reasonable job describing the way the colonists dressed for the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. The popular perception in America (thanks to a lithograph titled "The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor" done in 1846, 73 years after the event took place) is that the colonists dressed in fringe, face paint and feathered headdresses, but they did not do that. Here's what Forbes wrote in Johnny Tremain about the colonists getting ready (p. 140):
...they started to assume their disguises, smootch their faces with soot, paint them with red paint, pull on nightcaps, old frocks, torn jackets, blankets with holes cut for their arms...
See? No fringed buckskin. On page 141, Forbes writes that Johnny "had a fine mop of feathers standing upright in the old knitted cap he would wear on his head..."
I have notes on this somewhere.... I don't recall red paint and feather caps, but the rest of what Forbes writes matches what I recall. I'm mostly glad to see the accuracy of her description of the disguises, but disappointed when I get to page 143:
"Quick!" he [Rab] said, and smootched his face with soot, drew a red line across his mouth running from ear to ear. Johnny saw Rab's eyes through the mask of soot. They were glowing with that dark excitement he had seen but twice before. His lips were parted. His teeth looked sharp and white as an animals.
The character, Rab, in his painted face, becomes animal like. That is a familiar frame: Indian people and animals, very much alike. And of course, it is wrong.
In her discussion of Johnny Tremain, Bird includes a clip from the 1957 Disney film of the movie. In the clip, the colonists, some in fringed clothes, some in knit caps with feathers stuck into them, some with headbands and feathers, and some with painted faces, sing "Sons of Liberty."
Number 73 is My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George, published in 1959. The word "Indian" appears on six different pages.
On page 22, Sam writes that he read that river birch "has combustible oil in it that the Indians used to start fires."
On page 31, he remembers that Indians made dugout canoes with fire.
On page 43, he refers to feathers in an Indian quiver.
On page 65, Sam has pancakes that are flat and hard, which he imagines Indian bread is like.
On page 108 is a reference to "playing cowboys and Indians."
On page 141, it is springtime, but aspens and birch trees "were still bent like Indian bows."
Number 66 is Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech. On February 5, 2007, I published Beverly Slapin's review of the book here. In a nutshell? Not recommended! [Note, April 16, 2010: Also see my review essay, "Thoughts on Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons", published on Feb. 25, 2010.]
Number 63 is Gone Away Lake written by Elizabeth Enrich in 1957. I did a search of content (used Google Books) and found four uses of "Indian" in the book.
Page 141: "Now and then (unnecessarily since they never looked back), he would freeze and stand still as an Indian in the shadows."
Page 198: "She just sat there, Baby-Belle did, with her arms folded on her chest staring at Mrs. Brace-Gideon severely, like an Indian chief or a judge or somebody like that."
Page 217: "the pale little crowds of Indian pipes and the orange jack-o'-lantern mushrooms that pushed up the needles."
Page 756: "in the distance, by the river's edge, a tiny Indian campfire burned with the colors of an opal."
In Gone Away Lake, one of the characters is named Minnehaha, which is from Longfellow. I don't know why she's named that. It is commonly regarded as an "Indian" name, but it is not. We can thank (or blame) Longfellow for so much of the mistaken information that circulates!
Number 61 is Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, published in 2000. On page 10, Spinelli writes that Stargirl wears outrageous clothes to school. Among them is "An Indian buckskin."
Number 59 is Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, published in 2003. On page 206, Flatnose tells Basta that it will be hard to find Meggie, Mo, Elinor, and Dustfinger's trail in the dark. Flatnose replies "Exactly!" and "We're not bloody native trackers, are we?"
Number 50 is Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell, published in 1960. I have not yet read this... And that is a huge problem, given its status...
Number 46 is Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls, published in 1961.
On page 10, "The land we lived on was Cherokee land, allotted to my mother because of the Cherokee blood that flowed in her veins."
Page 43, "I reached way back in Arkansas somewhere. By the time my fist had traveled all the way down to the Cherokee Strip, there was a lot of power behind it.
On page 143, where Rubin says "A long time ago some Indians lived here and farmed these fields."
On page 254, Billy recalls that he "had heard the old Indian legend about the red fern. How a little Indian boy and girl were lost in a blizzard and had frozen to death. In the spring, when they were found, a beautiful red fern had grown up between their two bodies. The story went on to say that only an angel could plant the seeds of a red fern, and that they never died; where one grew, that spot was sacred."
According to Bird, much of the book is based on Rawls childhood in Scraper, Oklahoma where he lived until he was 15 or 16. Given his birthyear (1913), he was in Oklahoma from 1913 to 1928 or 1929. Scraper is in Cherokee County, Oklahoma, and is near Tahlequah, which is where the Cherokee Nation's offices are located. I was surprised, on reading Scholastic's guide for the book, to learn that Rawls's mother, Winnie Hatfield Rawls, was part Cherokee. The guide says (page 6):
"...she had been given some land in Oklahoma by the federal government. (The United States gave land to some Native Americans who had been displaced from their original land.)"
Gave?! Gave?! Nope. The guide is referring to the process by which the United States government forcibly moved several Indian Nations from their homelands TO what came to be called Indian Territory, and then, took that land from them, too, through acts passed by Congress that were designed to break up their identity as Native Nations and allot them parcels of land.
But going back to the book itself, Rawls, who (if the guide is correct) was part Cherokee. It seems to me he was not at all familiar with that identity. He has the character, Rubin, saying "A long time ago some Indians lived here...." Was Billy part Cherokee? Maybe he was hiding that identity. Maybe Rawls and his family hid that identity. The violence inflicted on Native people during that time prompted many to hide it... I'm curious about the legend, too. I wonder if that is a story from the Cherokees oral tradition? And I wonder why, when Billy went to Tahlequah to get the puppies, he doesn't mention any Cherokees there?
Number 42 is Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Published in 1935, I've had a lot to say on American Indians in Children's Literature about the book. Scroll down to the bottom and see the set of links, or, look over in the sidebars...
Number 41 is The Witch of Blackbird Pondby Elizabeth George Speare, published in 1958. Given its setting (1687, in Connecticut), there are references to fights with Indians, fights with Indians and wolves, and Indian attacks (see pages 40, 51, 59, 145, 187, 191, and 192).
Number 34 is The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis.
Page 50: "...looked like we were in the Wild West and I was a wagon train and Byron was the Indians circling, waiting to attack
Page 88: "This looked like the Indians circling the wagons again, but this time it was Byron who had to be the white people!"
Number 31 is Half Magic by Edward Eager, published in 1954. On page 45, the children are approached by a "ragged Arab" to whom Martha says "How!" Mark hisses to her, under his breath "What do you think he is, an Indian?"
Number 25 is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, published in 1868 and 1869.
On page 201, "Laurie opened the parlor door and popped his head in very quietly. He might just as well have turned a somersault and uttered an Indian war whoop, for his face was so full of suppressed excitement and his voice so treacherously joyful that everyone jumped up..."
On page 245, "It was a pictorial sheet, and Jo examined the work of art nearest her, idly wondering what unfortuitous concatenation of circumstances needed the melodramatic illustration of an Indian in full war costume, tumbling over a precipice with a wolf at his throat, while two infuriated young gentlemen..."
Number 24 is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, published in 2007. Reading it aloud with my daughter when it came out, we surprised when we got to page 216. At that point in the book, Harry is looking at a photograph of Albus Dumbledore's family. We were surprised to read:
"The mother, Kendra, had jet-black hair pulled into a high bun. Her face had a carved quality about it. Harry thought of photos of Native Americans he'd seen as he studied her dark eyes, high cheekbones, and straight nose, formally composed above a high-necked silk gown."
Number 23 is Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder, published in 1932. I wrote about this on March 19, 2010, quoting the passage from the book where Pa, as a kid, played that he was hunting Indians. Here's the specific passage (from page 53), but do go read my entire entry on that day.
"I began to play I was a mighty hunter, stalking the wild animals and the Indians. I played I was fighting the Indians, until all woods seemed full of wild men, and then all at once I heard the birds twittering 'good night.'
Number 20 is The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan, published in 2005.
On page 171: "It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamingos and wooden Indians and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that.
Number 17 is Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli, published in 1990.
On page 80, a kid sits "Indian-style" and,
On page 150, John tells Maniac what he imagines: "the blacks sweeping across Hector one steaming summer night; torches, chains, blades, guns, war cries; marauding, looking, overrunning the West End; climbing in through smashed windows, doors, looking for whites, bloodthirsty for whites, like Indians in the old days, Indians on a raid... That's what they are, Giant John nodded thoughtfully, "today's Indians."
Number 16 is Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, published in 1964.
On page 4, Harriet and Sport talk about what they will be when they grow up. Writing about character names and professions in her notebook, she says "You've got to have a doctor, a lawyer---" and then, Sport interrupts, saying "And an Indian chief."
On page 96, Ole Golly blushes when Mr. Waldenstein calls her attractive. The text reads "The crimson zoomed up Ole Golly's face again, making her look exactly like a hawk-nosed Indian. Big Chief Golly, Harriet thought, what is happening to you?"
Number 13 is Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, published in 1977. This is from page 128:
After lunch, they trotted through the drizzle to the Smithsonian to see the dinosaurs and the Indians. There they came upon a display case holding a miniature scene of Indians disguised in buffalo skins scaring a herd of buffalo into stampeding over a cliff to their death with more Indians waiting below to butcher and skin them. It was a three-dimensional nightmare version of some of his own drawings.
Number 1 is Charlotte's Web by E. B. White, published in 1952. The word "Indian" appears twice, both times in reference to a blanket that Lurvy won.
