Sunday, January 27, 2013

GIRL MEETS BOY, edited by Kelly Milner Halls

Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

In the closing pages of Girl Meets Boy: Because There Are Two Sides to Every Story, we learn that Joseph Bruchac wrote "Falling Down to See the Moon" and that after reading his story, Cynthia Leitich Smith wrote "Mooning Over Broken Stars."

Joe and Cyn are two of my favorite writers. I recognize the places they write about, and as a Native kid/teen who grew up at Nambe Pueblo, I recognize the characters they developed for their stories in Girl Meets Boy. I know/knew guys like Bobby Wildcat and girls like Nancy Whitepath. They were my classmates when I was in school at Pojoaque (a public school that serves four different pueblos).

And they were my students when I taught Native kids in New Mexico and Oklahoma. Nancy Whitepath is a basketball player. When I taught at Santa Fe Indian School, my husband and I went to a lot of basketball games, cheering for our students. SFIS has won many state championships (source: Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper):



In the stories they wrote for Girl Meets Boy, we aren't told what tribe either character belongs to. Most of the time, the omission of that detail would be a serious flaw. Tribal identity is one of the things I look for when evaluating a story. But, because Joe and Cyn are who they are, I didn't need that detail. I was with them right away. I want to spend time thinking about what that means...

For now, I'm just going to recommend that you get Girl Meets Boy (published in 2012 by Chronicle Books).


Saturday, January 26, 2013

Playing Indian - Vintage Valentine's Day Cards

Over at BuzzFeed, Leonora Epstein posted 15 Unbelievably Racist Valentine's Day Cards. I'm sharing two of them in this post. Before I do that, though, let's take a look at the subtitle for her post. She writes "This collection of V-Day cards circa 1900 to 1930 or so will make you wish Valentine's Day never existed." With that subtitle, she suggests that times are different. I think she's not paying attention to mascots like the ones for the Washington Redskins or the Cleveland Indians. She must not know about the Gwen Stefani video either.

Let's take a look at two of the cards:


Problems:
"Ugh ugh" - I'd love to know who it was that first put down "ugh ugh" as words or speech of Native people!

The headdress itself - One of the common stereotypical ways that a headdress is drawn.

The geometric trim around the heart - I guess this could be traced to textiles Native artists weave on looms. But don't artists from other groups also use looms in creating their woven items?

Wondering about his "give me" line. What do you think about that?

And or course, he is playing Indian. The artist didn't intend you to think the boy is actually Native. That's different (mostly) from the other Valentine's Day cards in the BuzzFeed article...


Here's the second one:

Problems:
"How" - Another utterance someone attributed as the way that Indians say hello. You remember it from Disney's Peter Pan?

The headdress - Another of the common ways that a headdress is drawn...

Given her skin tone, we can speculate that the artist meant her to actually be Native, but that's not likely. Like the boy in the card above, she's most likely playing Indian, too.



If you want to see more, check out the ones Adrienne K. has been posting each year at Native Appropriations. As far as I know, makers of the Valentine's day cards no longer use these stereotypes. I wish authors and illustrators of children's and young adult literature would stop, too!

Friday, January 25, 2013

Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures: The Mount Rushmore Calamity

In 1964, Jeff Brown introduced readers to a character named Flat Stanley:



Flat Stanley's name is actually Stanley Lambchop, but a bulletin board fell on him, turning him from a three-dimensional boy into a flat one. Much beloved, Flat Stanley evolved into a very popular project through which schoolchildren would make a Flat Stanley and mail it to friends and family in far off places.

A huge success, it also evolved into a series of early readers. Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures: The Mount Rushmore Calamity is one of those readers.



In it, Flat Stanley and his family go to Mount Rushmore. While there, they meet a tour guide's daughter. Her name is Calamity Jasper:



The interesting thing about Calamity Jasper is what she says about herself on page 48:



See? She is "part Lakota Sioux." In addition to knowing "useful things" about plants and hunting (can you say STEREOTYPE?), she knows how to send smoke signals (come on, say it again: STEREOTYPE). Course, because Stanley is FLAT, they use him as the blanket to send those smoke signals:



The stereotypes are bad, but there's more.

Look again at page 48 when Calamity tells us she's part Lakota Sioux. See the words "Gold Rush" in the previous sentence? Calamity Jasper is out looking for gold in a gold mine. A gold mine located in the Black Hills, and she is determined to get some of that gold for herself...

Let's consider what the Lakota Nation has on its website about the Black Hills:
In 1874 George Armstrong Custer led the U.S. Army Black Hills Expedition, which set out on July 2 from Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory, with orders to travel to the previously uncharted Black Hills of South Dakota. Its mission was to look for suitable locations for a fort, find a route to the southwest, and to investigate the potential for gold mining. His discovery of gold was made public and miners began migrating there illegally.

"Custer's florid descriptions of the mineral and timber resources of the Black Hills, and the land's suitability for grazing and cultivation ... received wide circulation, and had the effect of creating an intense popular demand for the 'opening' of the Hills for settlement. "Initially the U.S. military tried to turn away trespassing miners and settlers. Eventually President Grant, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Secretary of War, "decided that the military should make no further resistance to the occupation of the Black Hills by miners."These orders were to be enforced "quietly", and the President's decision was to remain "confidential."

As more settlers and gold miners invaded the Black Hills, the Government determined it had to acquire the land from the Sioux, and appointed a commission to negotiate the purchase. The negotiations failed, as the Sioux resisted giving up what they considered sacred land. The U.S. resorted to military force. They declared the Sioux Indians "hostile" for failing to obey an order to return from an off-reservation hunting expedition by a specific date, but in the dead of winter, overland travel was impossible.

The consequent military expedition to remove the Sioux from the Black Hills included an attack on a major encampment of several bands on the Little Bighorn River. Led by General Custer, the attack ended in the overwhelming victory of chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse over the 7th Cavalry Regiment, a conflict often called Custer's Last Stand.

In 1876 the U.S. Congress decided to open up the Black Hills to development and break up the Great Sioux Reservation. In 1877, it passed an act to make 7.7 million acres (31,000 km2) of the Black Hills available for sale to homesteaders and private interests. In 1889 Congress divided the remaining area of Great Sioux Reservation into five separate reservations and defined the boundaries of each in its Act of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888.

With that history in mind, I think portraying a Lakota character as a gold miner is problematic.  

At the end of the book, there's a section called "What You Need to Know to Be a Black Hills Gold Miner." I'm guessing this information is what led the reviewer for School Library Journal to call the book "educational":
Native Americans have lived in the Black Hills for more than 9000 years. Some Lakota believe the Black Hills are the sacred center of the world.

The Black Hills Gold Rush began in 1874, when Colonel Custer led a thousand men into the western part of South Dakota to investigate reports that the area contained gold. That's the same Custer who later had his Last Stand against Sitting Bull at the Battle of Little Big Horn. 

One of the most famous cowgirls of the Black Hills was named Calamity Jane. She was a good friend of the famous lawman Wild Bill Hickock.

Gold was first discovered in the Black Hills just a few miles from where Mount Rushmore was later built.

Some would-be miners get tricked by "fools gold," which looks a lot like the real thing. If you want to tell the difference, try pressing your fingernail into the surface. If it leaves a small indent, you've found gold!

The heads on Mount Rushmore are as tall as a six-story building. If you matched them with bodies, the men with those heads would be three times as tall as the Statue of Liberty. 
Some of the individual items the reader needs to know to be a "Black Hills Gold Miner" are odd. Why would you tell the child that the Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota people?! You've just read a story about mining for gold... on sacred land? I don't get the logic. How would the story itself be different if the author included the sacred nature of that land within the story? Maybe the author would abandon the project. Maybe the author didn't write these last pages!

Though the reviewer for School Library Journal called this book "educational and fun," I disagree. Stereotypes are not fun, and I don't think the book is educational, either. Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures: The Mount Rushmore Calamity was published in 2009 by Harper. The author is Sara Pennypacker, and the illustrations are by Macky Pamintuan.

Update: Friday, January 25, 6:00 PM

You may be interested in Monumental Myths - a video about monuments, especially the last segment, which is about Mount Rushmore.

Brandon Mull's FABLEHAVEN: GRIP OF THE SHADOW PLAGUE

A few weeks ago, I pointed to stereotypes in Brandon Mull's Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star. Today, I'm pointing to problems in his Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague. 

First---here's an overview, by Denise Daley (her review is at Barnes and Noble):
Strange things have been happening in Fablehaven. A mysterious shadow plague is slowly overtaking the once peaceful magical creatures that live there. The nipsies are like regular people except they are only about half an inch big. Some of their kingdoms have recently been attacked by other nipsies who have somehow been transformed into sinister beings. Seth is the first to discover the disturbing changes. He and his sister Kendra have been staying with their grandparents at Fablehaven. Kendra has unique abilities that can possibly help, but the situation is extremely dangerous. Kendra's grandparents reluctantly grant her permission to visit a special place where she is inducted into the Knights of the Dawn. She and several other knights immediately begin an assignment to retrieve a hidden artifact. 

That assignment takes her to the "Lost Mesa preserve" (p. 94) in Arizona which is on Navajo land. The hidden artifact is one of five. Together, all five of the artifacts can open a demon prison called Zzyzxa. In chapter 7, Kendra and the other knights arrive at Lost Mesa. Here's the illustration at top of that page:



Some of you will say "but that's Taos!" when you see that page. I sure did! (For those who don't know about Taos Pueblo, do an Internet search of images on Taos Pueblo and you'll find plenty of them.)  There are, in fact, pueblo people in Arizona. The Hopi Nation is there, and, they do have structures like the ones at Taos, but seriously---do the search and there's no denying that a photo of Taos was the inspiration for Brandon Dorman's illustration of Lost Mesa.

Kendra and her group are driven to Lost Mesa by "a quiet Navajo man with leathery skin, probably in his fifties" (p. 122). His name is Neil. He's wearing a cowboy hat and a bolo tie, and though Kendra tries to get him to talk to her, he answers her questions "but never elaborated or made inquiries of his own" (p. 123). Though some of us are quiet like that, I suspect that Mull is drawing on stereotypes of the stoic Indian.

Neil starts talking a bit more when they get closer to Lost Mesa. He tells her they call it Painted Mesa, and that
Almost nobody knows, but part of the reason the Navajo people ended up with the largest reservation in the country was to conceal this hallowed place" (p. 125). 
How, I wonder, do people who aren't Native, or who don't pay attention to the quality of Native content in children's and young adult books, process that line?! Part of it is true. The Navajo Nation does have the largest reservation in the United States. But that bit about having the largest reservation so they could conceal a hallowed place?! Who, in Mull's fantasyland, did THAT?!

Mull has done some research for this book. His research is evident in this exchange, when Kendra asks about Lost Mesa (p. 125):
   "Do Navajo's run it?" Kendra asked.
   "Not solely. We Dine are new here compared to the Pueblo people."
   "Has the preserve been here long?" Kendra asked. She finally had Neil on a roll!
   "This is the oldest preserve on the continent, founded centuries before European colonization, first managed by the ancient race outsiders call Anasazi. Persian magi actually established the preserve. They wanted it to stay a secret. Back then, this land was unknown across the Atlantic. We're still doing a good job at remaining off the map."
   "Painted Mesa can't be seen from outside of the fence?" Kendra asked.
   "Not even by satellites," Neil said proudly. "This preserve is the opposite of a mirage. You don't see us, but we're really here."
In Mull's book, Lost Mesa is an "it" that is "run" by someone. He might know that Native Nations are sovereign governments, but he might also think they're like corporations to be run by someone. From Neil, we learn that the Navajo and Pueblo people run Lost Mesa together. Remember what I said earlier... there are, in fact, Pueblo people in Arizona, but they generally refer to themselves as Hopis. Historically speaking, the Navajo are newcomers to that area.

Let's assume that Mull is talking about villages on one of the Hopi Mesas. They were, in fact, founded centuries before European colonization. But, "first managed by the ancient race outsiders call Anasazi" is a bit messy. "Managed" confirms my suspicion that Mull thinks of Native Nations as companies rather than governments. "Ancient race" is Hopis, but I think it was the Navajo people that called them Anasazi, and then, that term was widely used by anthropologist and archaeologists. For a long time, a lot of people thought the Anasazi people vanished, but today, it is widely acknowledged that we (present day Pueblo Indian) are descendants of that "ancient" people and that we didn't vanish.

But what to make of "Persian magi" who "actually established the preserve" before Europeans even knew the continent existed?! These magi must be part of Mull's fantasy world. He doesn't say they established the village. He specifically says "the preserve."

And then that part about being invisible?! We're supposed to be with Mull in his fantasy world, but as a Native person who knows a lot about the ways that mainstream power structures misrepresent and omit Indigenous people, I gotta say that this is wacky!!!

Moving on...

On page 127, Neil pulls up at a hacienda. There's a pueblo near the hacienda. We meet "a short Native woman" named Rosa and her daughter, Maria, who is "a tall, slender Native American woman with a broad jaw and high cheekbones." Rosa has "copper skin" and is the caretaker of Lost Mesa. They also meet Hal, who is Maria's father and Rosa's husband. He is described as a "potbellied man with narrow shoulders, long limbs, and a heavy gray mustache." I think he's white, don't you? White is the default. Generally speaking, writers only describe skin color when a character is not white.

Hal takes Kendra and Gavin (a youngish knight like Kendra) on a tour of Lost Mesa. They see "an old Spanish mission" with a cemetery and "a pueblo" which, Hal says, "are the oldest structures on the property" (p. 131). Hal stops to feed the zombies in the cemetery.

Yeah... you read that right. Hal tells them that it is the oldest and biggest zombie collection in the world. In the cemetery, there are almost 200 graves. Beside each grave, there's a bell on a small pole, with a cord attached to the bell. The cord goes down into the grave. If a zombie is hungry, it rings its bell. Hal lifts a tube, unstops it, puts a funnel in it, and pours "goopy red fluid" from a bucket down into the grave. Are you creeped out? Or grossed out?!

Next stop is a museum that houses "the world's largest collection of freestanding magical creature skeletons and other related paraphernalia" (p. 135). Gavin objects to the display of a dragon skeleton, because, he says dragons are sacred, and its sacrilegious to display their bones. That's an interesting turn, given that complete skeletons of Native people were, for many years, displayed like museum objects. For more info on that topic, this video is worth watching:



Back to Mull's story....

That night, the group of knights climbs Lost Mesa to "the Old Pueblo" (p. 204):
Lightning blazed across the sky, the first Kendra had noticed since setting out. For a moment, the entire expanse of the mesa flashed into view. In the distance, toward the center, Kendra saw ancient ruins, layer upon layer of crumbling walls and stairs that must once have formed a more impressive pueblo complex than the structure neighboring the hacienda. Briefly her eye was drawn to the movement of many dancers prancing wildly in the rain on the near side of the ruins. Before she could consider the scene, the lightning flash ended. The distance and the darkness and the rain combined to obscure the revelers even from Kendra's keen eyes. Thunder rumbled, muffled by the wind.
   "Kachinas!" Neil cried
   The middle-aged Navajo rapidly loosed Kendra from the climbing gear, not bothering to remove her harness. Lightning flared again, revealing that the figures were no longer engaged in their frenzied dance. The revelers were charging toward them.
Ok, I'm going to stop reading Mull's book.

Equating kachinas with revelers is offensive. Using "prancing wildly" and "frenzied" to describe them is also offensive. Seems to me that Mull is the one in a frenzy!  Caught up in superficial knowledge of Native peoples, he inserts stereotypes and misinformation into another genre of children's literature. Some might find his books engaging. I find them insulting.

Why, I wonder, did Mull feel compelled to write Native people into his book?!

No doubt, fans of Mull's series will submit comments to this review, telling me "its just a book" and "its fantasy, not non-fiction, so leave it alone!"

The fact is, it isn't ONE book. It isn't just Mull's Fablehaven series. Its misrepresentation and stereotyping in books published every year, going back hundreds of years. It'll only stop when we stop buying books like this.

Consider what you have on your library shelves right now. If you started a pile of fiction and nonfiction books that misrepresent Indigenous people, and placed alongside it ones that accurately portray Indigenous people, you'd see what I mean. And hopefully, you'd start to deselect those with misrepresentations. Course, you'd have a lot of space, but you could fill that space with books that don't misinform your patrons and students. Won't that be better? For all of us?


Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Louise Erdrich's CHICKADEE wins the 2013 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction!


Congratulations to Louise Erdrich!  Chickadee was selected as the recipient of the 2013 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. From the Horn Book website:
The 2013 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction goes to Louise Erdrich for Chickadee, published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. The annual award, created by Scott O’Dell and Zena Sutherland in 1982 and now administered by Elizabeth Hall, carries with it a prize of $5000, and goes to the author of a distinguished work of historical fiction for young people published by a U. S. publisher and set in the Americas. This is the second O’Dell Award for Louise Erdrich; she won it in 2006 for The Game of Silence, also published by Harper. (The honors don’t stop there; Erdrich also just won the 2012 National Book Award for her adult novel The Round House.)
Here's more from their remarks about the book:
The book has humor and suspense (and disarmingly simple pencil illustrations by the author), providing a picture of 1860s Anishinabe life that is never didactic or exotic and is briskly detailed with the kind of information young readers enjoy: who knew, for example, that an oxcart train would be so loud, or that mosquitoes could be so terrifying? Anishanabe beliefs about the spiritual connections between humans and the natural world are conveyed matter-of-factly as Chickadee gets help and encouragement from his namesake bird; the Christian faith of the “Black Robes” is also given nuance and respect. Chickadee’s first taste of a peppermint stick in the burgeoning city of St. Paul is just one sign of the increasingly multicultural nature of his family’s world, a world that we hope this author continues to chronicle.

Do you have a copy of it yet? Order one today from Birchbark Books.

In September, 2012, Martha V. Parravano of Horn Book interviewed Erdrich. Check it out, too! In the interview, she says that her next book will be titled Makoons. In it she says that she will be "writing from the living memory" of her relatives. Her writing is exquisite. It'll be hard to wait, but also something to look forward to!
Five questions for Louise Erdrich

S. D. Nelson's GREET THE DAWN THE LAKOTA WAY

This is my favorite page...



... in S. D. Nelson's Greet the Dawn the Lakota Way. Why, you wonder? Simple. As a Pueblo Indian kid growing up on our reservation in New Mexico, I rode a yellow school bus just like that. Illustrations like that make me smile because they reflect my reality, my personal experience, my life as a Native child. Native children today need that sort of thing because it provides them with a mirror of who they are.

On the facing page, several children run towards the bus. Some are carrying band instruments! Again! That was me! Carrying my clarinet!

Enough reminiscing.

Here's the cover for Nelson's book:


Ok.... more reminiscing. My grandfather, dad, uncle and brothers had horses that we rode around the reservation. We laugh today, remembering Perla, the mare that would simply lay down to get rid of us. I vividly recall feeling the shift in her bones at that moment when she decided she was going to lay down. We'd have to pull our legs up quick-like and be ready to leap off. And of course, we were riding in the same sort of clothes the kids on the cover of Greet the Dawn are wearing.

The beauty in Nelson's book is that he puts our existence in the present day, but through his art, he conveys the fact that in our communities, we are in touch with our identity as Native people whose spiritualities--across our many nations--are unique, vibrant, and, like the air we breathe, all around us.

Another couple of huge plus factors for Nelson's book is that it includes Lakota songs, in Lakota and English. And, he notes the source for the songs in "A Note about the Illustrations and the Text" in the back of the book. He takes care, in other words, to point us to his sources. There's no ambiguity in what he says.

One last comment... the page where a family is shown outside at night, welcoming the moon? An elder is shown, sitting on a folding chair. That is another familiar image, firmly grounded in my reality.

Order a copy today from a small bookstore, like Louise Erdrich's Birchbark Books. Greet the Dawn the Lakota Way was published in 2012 by the South Dakota State Historical Society Press.

Oh! Forgot to include the trailer. Here it is:



And... Nelson is Standing Rock Sioux.

Update: Montana's Indian Education For All program


In 2006, I wrote a short post about an educational initiative in Montana. Called "Indian Education for All," it is designed to provide all students in Montana with accurate information about American Indians.

Today, I'm pointing you to "The Positive Impact of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Montana's Indian Education for All" by Jioanna Carjuzaa. Her article is in Volume 14(3) of the International Journal of Multicultural Education. Published in 2012, here's the abstract:
Montana's Indian Education for All Act is an unprecedented state constitutional mandate requiring educators to integrate American Indian content into its instruction. Not all educators in this western state in the United States embrace this requirement, but those who do become change agents as they lead students to challenge the status quo. Tensions between Indians and non-Indians influence Montana's historical and contemporary social fabric. From reservation border towns to urban school districts, and even in the state government, pervasive lack of cultural awareness contributes to misunderstandings and persistent inequities. Yet, in this climate, students are stepping up and speaking out.
If you are interested in making your library's collection more inclusive, or revamp your curriculum so that it increases cultural awareness of Indigenous people, take a look at the article (if the link doesn't work, write to me and I'll send it to you) and at the website, too:

The Positive Impact of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
Indian Education for All at website for Montana's Office of Public Instruction


Monday, January 21, 2013

First Image of "Indian" in Children's Book

In 1657, John Amos Comenius wrote and illustrated Orbis Pictus, an encyclopedic picture book for children that is now commonly recognized as the first picture book for children. In honor of Comenius, the National Council of Teachers of English established a nonfiction book award and named it the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children.

Comenius included what the world now knows as American Indians, or, Native Americans, in his book in the section about religion, where he wrote:

The Indians, 10. even at this day, worship the Devil, 11.

Here's the illustration. The Indian and Devil are on the right. According to Comenius, the Indian is kneeling to "worship the Devil."



I don't mean to suggest that NCTE ought not to have named the award after the book. The book itself does mark an important moment.

I do wish that writers, illustrators, reviews, publishers, teachers, and librarians would be more thoughtful about misrepresentations in things they write, illustrate, publish, teach, and share today. You can't, of course, misrepresent what people like Comenius thought, but you can present their thoughts in a way that points out the errors of that thinking. And, of course, it is important for authors and illustrators to be tribally specific in any work they do about American Indians. 

Friday, January 18, 2013

Von Otfried Preussler's THE LITTLE WITCH

Fellow blogger Monica Edinger pointed to a story in The Guardian about changes made to Von Otfried Preussler's The Little Witch. Though I'm not certain, I think the English language version was published in 1961. It was first published in 1957 in Germany.

From what I've been able to piece together, its a story about a good witch who goes to a gathering of witches. She's told she can't be there until she becomes a 'good' witch, with 'good' meaning one who does bad deeds, not good ones.

The Little Witch is in the news because in its newest version, some words have been replaced, including "neger" which translates to "negro" in the English versions. Here's an excerpt from the article:
The word "Neger", seen as politically incorrect in Germany today, is used during a section of the story when the witch and her raven Abraxas see a group of children in fancy dress for a carnival. "The two little Negro boys didn't come from the circus," writes the award-winning translator Anthea Bell in an English edition. "No more did the Turks and Indians. The Chinese women, the cannibal, the Eskimo girl, the desert sheikh and the Hottentot chief were not part of the show either. No – it was carnival time in the village. The children had a half-holiday from school because of the carnival, and they were romping about the village square in fancy dress."
The article doesn't say what neger/negro was replaced with. Course, I wondered about the Indians and Eskimo, so did a bit of searching and found this image:

Source: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/mickythepixel/sets/72157627834517776/


I don't know if that is the page in question. I can't find (on the source pages for that image) what version of the book the image is from (German or English or one of the 47 other languages The Little Witch is available in). If it is the illustration for the page(s) that have been "modernised," I wonder how the text for the page was rewritten, and, if they removed "neger" and the two boys, too.

I wondered, on reading "Indians" and "Eskimo," how they'd be shown. The boy in the headdress above provides a partial answer, and I think the character behind him might be the Eskimo. What do you think? Of course, we're in stereotype-land here. Though the publisher used "politically correct" to describe their changes, they could have used "stereotype" instead and they could have done a bit more revising...

Friday, January 11, 2013

Catherine Knutsson's SHADOWS CAST BY STARS


Catherine Knutsson's Shadows Cast by Stars came to my attention in November 2012 when I was looking for young adult paranormal romance novels that have Native themes or characters. Published in June, here's Amazon's description for Shadows Cast by Stars:
Old ways are pitted against new horrors in this compellingly crafted dystopian tale about a girl who is both healer and seer.
     Two hundred years from now, blood has become the most valuable commodity on the planet—especially the blood of aboriginal peoples, for it contains antibodies that protect them from the Plague ravaging the rest of the world.
     Sixteen-year-old Cassandra Mercredi might be immune to Plague, but that doesn’t mean she’s safe—government forces are searching for those of aboriginal heritage to harvest their blood. When a search threatens Cassandra and her family, they flee to the Island: a mysterious and idyllic territory protected by the Band, a group of guerilla warriors—and by an enigmatic energy barrier that keeps outsiders out and the spirit world in. And though the village healer has taken her under her wing, and the tribal leader’s son into his heart, the creatures of the spirit world are angry, and they have chosen Cassandra to be their voice and instrument....
     Incorporating the traditions of the First Peoples as well as the more familiar stories of Greek mythology and Arthurian legend, Shadows Cast by Stars is a haunting, beautifully written story that breathes new life into ancient customs.
Intrigued? I sure was! A story about aboriginal blood being a commodity because it has antibodies against a Plague that is killing those who aren't aboriginal... And being hunted for blood...

So I started reading, but kept stumbling over the narrative. Below, my summary of the novel is in plain text, and my comments are in italics.

__________

Shadows Cast by Stars is set 200 years in the future. The earth is slowly getting colder, and fertility rates are down.

Debbie's comments: That would be approximately the year 2212. In my analysis, I use that date to set dates for other bits of chronological information provided in the story.

On page one, we are introduced to Cassandra Mercredi, the protagonist. She is Metis, 16 years old, and with her dad and brother (Paul), lives "the Old Way" in a house on farm land that once belonged to her great grandfather. The house is located near the "Western Population Corridor." In their home, they are safe from the government (the "UA"), the people in the Corridor, and "the Band." Living in "the Old Way" means they live without electricity, running water, garbage collection. Living that way keeps them connected to the earth.

The farm land was treaty land, but on page 28, we learn that in 2210, the Band signed it "back to the UA" and left for the Island. Cass and her family still live in it but the author doesn't tell us how that happens. The Band still feels some ownership, though, and show up at Cass's home whenever they want. They enter without knocking and drink with her father and brother. They all talk about how they will, one day, overthrow the UA and take back the land.

Debbie's comments: This is confusing... The Band signed it BACK? Using the word 'back' suggests it was the governments land to begin with. It also seems to me that if the Band gave up the land, Cass and her family would have had to leave, or, buy or lease it from the government. How is it they live in it?

Each morning, Cass and Paul head to the Corridor, where their school is located. At school, they "plug into the etherstream" (p. 1) via computer chips embedded in their forearms. By law, the chips cannot display information about race, religion, or sexual orientation. All their schoolmates know that they are "Others, of aboriginal descent, marked by the precious Plague antibodies" (p. 1) in their blood.

Debbie's comments: That confuses me... She doesn't say the government doesn't have the info. She says the chips can't display the info. So... does the government have the info?! If so, why doesn't the government just go after them for their blood right off? Why are they allowed to go to school?! It seems they would be protected by the government, due to the value of that blood. It also seems that the not-Others would kidnap them FOR that value.  

At school, Cassandra gathers things like twine, old pencils, elastic bands, and paper clips to make dreamcatchers.

Debbie's comments: Dreamcatchers? Seeing them as part of this story is, for me, a red flag. They signal "Indian" in the same way that a totem pole or 'totem' or 'spirit animal' does. 

Cassandra and Paul have powers. They both have visions. She has special powers that enable her to see a person's "shade" or "totem." Sometimes she has seizures and sees sparks that symbolize a spirit world. The spirits of that world figure prominently throughout the book, ever-there, wanting to take her into the spirit world. She guards against that happening, though, because it is not a good thing.

Debbie's comments: Hmm... She sees things others don't.... Totems...  These signal 'new age' to me... 

When Cass is making lunch for herself and Paul to take to school, she uses paper, not plastic bags, because her dad doesn't allow plastic in the house. Later, their father hurries them into his truck because the searchers are coming for them.

Debbie's comments: I guess the truck is an exception to the "Old Way." Her dad doesn't like that she gathers those things she uses to make dreamcatchers either, but his objection is because the things don't belong to her. His objection has nothing to do with them not being part of the "Old Way." Are some things ok and others aren't? Or is this an inconsistency in the development of the story?

With her dad in his truck is a woman named Madda who goes into the kitchen and sets up a tray of scalpels and needles.  Her father has heard that there aren't enough full blood aboriginals in the Corridor anymore, and the government is rounding up the half-bloods. That means Cassandra and Paul aren't safe, and it explains why Madda is with her dad...

Debbie's comments: Ok... so, being half-bloods, they weren't under threat until now. I'm curious about the author's constant use of "half blood" and "half breed." Today, those are derogatory terms rejected by Metis people. In 200 years, are we to believe there was a change such that the Metis people stopped using Metis and started using half blood or half-breed again?! It doesn't seem likely to me, and, given the family's desire to live in "the Old Way" it seems that using "Metis" would be part of that Old Way.  

Madda cuts the chips out of Cass and Paul's arms and they all leave the farm, headed to "The Island" which is "treaty lands" where "the Band" lives. Cass worries that the incisions will leave scars and mark them as outsiders to the Band. She thinks (p. 22):
[W]e'll both have scars. This is how they'll know where we came from when we get to the Island, that we weren't born there, that we weren't raised native. The Band might open its arms wide to us now, but they'll never, ever let us forget that we came from the Corridor first.
Debbie's comments: That is a very intriguing excerpt, and I wonder what it says about the author. On her website, she says that she recently learned that she is Metis. (Update: July 5 2016--the bio page has been edited and replaced with this one.) She was not raised Metis. Is she saying to us, by way of her protagonist, that First Nations people might open their arms to her but will never let her forget she was not raised Native? 

Debbie's comments: Learning that she wasn't raised Native and that she's recently been learning about her Metis heritage explains a great deal of what I find troublesome in the novel. It is sprinkled with things like dreamcatchers and totems (things embraced by people with scant knowledge of indigenous cultures) but the novel is also deeply laden with words and ideas that sound more like outsider perspective than insider perspective. One example is the half-blood/half-breed term used throughout. As the novel progresses, Cass is pitted against "supernaturals" who wish to harm her. Calling spirits---good or bad---"supernaturals" is outsider perspective. And, it isn't just Cass who uses that sort of language. The "full bloods" on the Island use it, too. 

To get to the Island, they have to pass through a boundary, or "the boundary." At one point in time, only Others could pass through it, bringing non-Others with them if they wanted to. Without an Other, the non-Others would be pushed away from the boundary. They'd never actually know about the boundary, though, because they'd attribute their movement to wind or water currents.

On the Island, Cass sees "full bloods" and whites, too.

Debbie's comments: On the Island, the men are depicted in derogatory ways. They drink. And there was a line that bothered me, too. On page 251, the text reads "Grace Eagleson is a drunk." Throughout, Grace (she's white) is depicted as being over-the-edge. She's obviously got problems, and while we are given some context for those problems, there's no compassion for her in the narrative. I know many people who struggle with alcohol, and while their family and friends grow frustrated in caring for them and lash out at times, there is compassion for them, or, at least a sadness, or, if someone does say "so and so is a drunk" there is a quality of shame or regret in having uttered that heartless statement. In one of the major review journals, the reviewer said that Alexie fans would recognize the characters in Shadows Cast By Stars, but I don't agree. When Alexie's Junior talks of his dad being "a drunk," he immediately follows that remark with how his dad never missed his games or concerts. Earlier, he says that his dad is a drunk and his mom is an ex-drunk but that they don't want their kids to be drunks. None of that sort of nuance or context occurs in SHADOWS around the alcoholism or other negative qualities of the Band. 

On the Island, there is a Longhouse at the heart of the community. When Cass, her brother, and her dad move into a house on the Island, Cass thinks about her mother (deceased):
...I can't help wondering what my mother would think of all this. She worked so hard to make sure we had a home at the Corridor. She didn't want me here. She wanted me in a place where I would have a future that didn't involve marrying a warrior and bearing him babies, a future that didn't condemn me to working my fingers to the bone and aging far before my time.
Debbie's comments: Her mom was white. She married a Metis. From what I read, she didn't work her fingers to the bone. Why did she think that she had to raise her children away from the Island? Was it due to the alcohol? Is this 'away from the Island/band' also part of the author's identity? 

At one point, one of the Native guys on the island says to Paul (p. 84):
"Whatever you say, apple."
Paul freezes. I can see he's fighting himself, that he wants to walk away, but he can't. Apple. Red on the outside, white on the inside. One of the worst insults an Other can throw.
Debbie's comments: I was pretty surprised to see Knutsson use 'apple' in her story. Alexie used it, too, in DIARY. Junior tells his white friend, Gordy, that people on the reservation called him an apple when he left the reservation school to attend the public school with the goal of becoming successful.  Her use of it signals to me that she's done some research on the tensions within Native communities.

As I read through the book, I kept waiting for the blood theme to develop, but it just went away as the story shifted to Cass struggling with the "supernaturals." I also waited for the Native peoples of the "five treaty territories" to enter the story. They're introduced on page 32. One is the Pueblos! So, obviously, being Pueblo, I wanted to see how Knutsson would present Pueblo people! But, she never does. 

As the story progresses from our introduction to Madda, we read that she is "a witching woman--a medicine woman..." (p. 113)

Debbie's comments: A witching woman?! So, Madda is speaking to Cass as though Cass has no knowledge of "the band's" ways? Again, I'm confused. All of the talk earlier of "the Old Way" and "traditions" doesn't quite match up with Cass's ignorance. And, I'm not convinced that Madda would call herself a witching woman anyway! Knuttson could have put a few more words into Madda's remark, saying something like "people who don't know our ways would call me a witching woman..."

In a dream, Cass sees Bran (her love interest) and Paul (her brother) talking. Bran takes out a hunting knife, "makes an incision in his forearm, right in the spot where a chip scar would be if he had one, and as blood wells up and drips onto the rock, he hands the blade to Paul, who embeds the point right into his chip scar. They press their forearms together, melding their blood, the water of their body" (p. 150).

Debbie's comments: Oh dear! Blood brothers?!

There's to be a gathering of the Band. Madda "wants to make a tea for the hangovers she'll have to treat tomorrow." Madda says: "Make sure you don't drink any of that firewater the Band brings tonight--horrible stuff" (p. 168).

Again---presentation of Indigenous people as being drunk... 

How to sum up?! Knutsson's book does not feel like a story written by an insider. It isn't the honest and contextualized portrayal of dysfunction that we saw in Alexie's book. Combined with the new age stereotypes, the superficial and derogatory ways in which Knuttson presents Indigenous people leaves me both outraged and sad. I'll be thinking about this book for some time... We need Native writers. Ones like Knutsson, who learn of their Native heritage as adults, could give us some much-needed stories, but dressed up in this sort of framework... it isn't working. 


Update: This blog post on Metis identity by Chelsea Vowel is very helpful (for those of you who want to know more about the Metis people).


Update, July 5, 2016

After Rowling's Magic in North America stories appeared, one of the conversations on social media was regarding speculative fiction by Native writers. Daniel Heath Justice (he's a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and is a professor in First Nations and Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia) has a list: A Sampling of Speculative Fiction by Indigenous Writers. It includes a few books I've reviewed as ones that can be read by, or are marketed to, young adults, like Shadows Cast by Stars. Specific to my questions about the term "half breed" Daniel wrote to me about it and suggested I take a look at Adam Gaudry's work. I've read some of his work before and look forward to spending more time with it. You can follow him on Twitter: @adamgaudry.

K. D. McEntire's LIGHTBRINGER

I started reading K. D. McEntire's Lightbringer... 

What to say about a book in which a character (Lily) wears braids, refers to her "shaman," is derisively called "Pocahontas" by another character and says things like "A brave needs..." (p. 47)?

I don't want to finish it, that's what to say...

No matter how much people like the author, the story, or the writing, it is still just another book in which an author inserts some half-baked new age baloney into an urban fantasy and offers it up, perhaps, as a 'multicultural' read because its got what the authors wants us to see as Native characters.

Lily (yeah, her name is Lily, like Tiger Lily and the protagonist is named Wendy and there's a guy in "the Never" named Piotr) sees "Awonawilona" or, "the bringer of light" who is, according to Lily's people and her shaman (ick... I really don't know any tribal person who refers to their medicine person as a shaman), able to send souls into another world, freeing them and giving them peace.

I'll stop reading now.

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

Update: Friday, January 25, 2013

I am pasting a comment directly into the post because the commenter states that she is the author. I have no way of verifying her statement, but given what is said in the comment, I believe it is, in fact, K. D. McEntire. Below is the comment. Frankly, I'm blown away by what she says. She's forthcoming in what occurred as the novel was being published. Her words give me hope. Here they are (I corrected one typo):

Hi. I don't normally do this - I believe in letting a work stand on its own in the face of all criticism - but I am the author and I'd like to apologize for how Lily was handled in my series. During the early drafts I had a lot more information regarding Lily's past and her tribe. I worked very hard to keep the idea of the Zuni both vague enough that any mistakes that I (as the author and not a layperson in the culture) made might be covered by the general smoothing of time (since Lily has been dead nearly two thousand years) but I was told while shopping the book around that all the extraneous detail I put into secondary characters "bogged down" the story. It wasn't just Lily but Elle, Piotr, and Eddie as well. Poor James' backstory was cut out entirely, diminishing the impact of being a slave down to two throwaway lines. It's a balancing act that, looking back, I know that I lost. I had a certain number of words to hit, a certain number of chapters to reach, and not everyone could get an equal say. Which is a shame, because I LOVE Lily as a character. I *was* trying to emulate the cool confidence of Tiger Lily from Peter Pan and I really hoped I was able to get that aspect of her character across at least.


It wasn't my intention to upset anyone or be disrespectful of ANY culture depicted in any of my books. I quite understand why you put it down and I hope you recognize that this was my debut novel. Every person grows in their field and I am doing my best to grow in mine

Update: Saturday, February 9, 2013

Upon reading McEntire's response, Jeffrey Canton (he teaches in the Children's Studies Program at York University in Toronto, Canada) posed some questions to her. She replied yesterday, and I'm pasting his questions and her comment below. She also wrote to me privately, verifying that it was her who submitted the comment on Jan 25th. Here's Canton's post, dated Friday, January 25th, 2013:

Jeffrey Canton said...

I certainly appreciate McEntire coming forward and explaining the issue BUT what I am curious about is who we're talking about here in terms of her decision to remove what she calls the "extraneous detail" - being respectful of cultural difference isn't extraneous so are we talking about agents or editors or other publishing types? Because debut novelist or not, who you listen to is pretty important and certainly no publisher that I know here in Canada would have recommended cutting cultural specific essentials!

Jeffrey Canton
Toronto



And here's McEntire's reply to me and Jeffrey, dated Friday, February 8, 2013:


Anonymous said...

Jeffrey,

"Extraneous detail" was a catch-all term used to explain that I was spending too much time on the secondary characters - Elle, Lily, James, "Specs", etc - and not on Wendy and Piotr. This came from two different agents who I know in real life, not just my own agent, and several of the publishers the book was shopped to before finding a home with Pyr and the amazing editorial team there.

Yes, it is important who you listen to but, again, this was my first trip into this world. You listen to people who might be willing to pay you for the book you poured your heart into and at the time I thought that I HAD to listen to every suggestion offered. I would have done ANYTHING to get my book published. Now, with the entire series complete - "NEVER" is coming out in May - I now have a better idea what editorial comments that I must take to heart and what I can take with a grain of salt.
You say, "certainly no publisher that I know here in Canada would have recommended cutting cultural specific essentials!"

The crux of the matter lies in a very important word: essentials.


Lily is a secondary character. She's a great character. I LOVE her. I loved writing her. She's wise and subtle and a perfect foil for Elle's over-the-top 1920's racist-sexist-bitchy-as-hell flapper character. But she's secondary. She is not either of the two main characters and as such all the amazing and complex details I found are, simply put, flavor text and thus are up for the editorial slice-and-dice when the word count drifts too high. It sucks. It's not a fun part of writing, but there you go.

Ultimately I really did try to be respectful of cultural differences. Eddie is Jewish, something you catch only via references. I hope this better explains where I was coming from. You can't please everyone but it was never, ever my intention to make anyone feel disrespected.


Oh! Debbie,

One last thing that I forgot to mention before in my prior comment -- "Pocahontas" from Elle is a backhanded compliment. I know you don't intend to finish the book or the series, but if you read on you eventually realize that she is poking fun of Lily because Elle loves and respects her a lot. She's from the 20's. She's racist. She makes off-color jokes and she never regrets them... but Lily and Piotr are her best friends. Lily is the only other person who can go toe-to-toe with Elle and come out on top. It's one of those "I can pick on my brother but don't you DARE" situations.

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Beverly Slapin's Review of Pomplun, Smelcer, and Bruchac's NATIVE AMERICAN CLASSICS


Editor's Notes: 
1) This essay may not be published elsewhere without written permission from its author, Beverly Slapin. Copyright 2012 by Beverly Slapin. All rights reserved.
2) I selected Two Wolves as the illustration to use for Slapin's essay because Joseph Bruchac and Richard Van Camp are two Native writers giving us outstanding work.  A selected set of illustrations is available at Pages from Native American Classics. 

____________________________________________

Title page for last story in book
Pomplun, Tom, editor, and John E. Smelcer and Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki), associate editors, Native American Classics (Graphic Classics, Volume 24). Eureka Productions, 2013.

INTRODUCTION

The “Graphic Classics” books, unlike other graphic adaptations, are anthologies, with each short story, poem, or abridged novel illustrated by a different artist. Native American Classics highlights the nascent English writing and publication by Native people, including Zitkala-Sa, Charles A. Eastman, E. Pauline Johnson, and others. It’s not the only anthology of earlier Indian writing; many others come to mind. One of my favorites is Paula Gunn Allen’s excellent Voice of the Turtle: American Indian Literature, 1900-1970 (Ballantine, 1995). One of the differences between Native American Classics and the other anthologies is that its graphic format will appeal to “reluctant” readers and others who are attracted to this particular genre. But Native American Classics is not without problems.

Way back, when the earliest Indian writers published their pictographs on vertical and horizontal outcroppings, they transmitted information, history, lessons, culture, language, and more. 

Fast-forward a few centuries, to the early 1900s. Stories by Indian writers of that era had to be both carefully written and suitable for publication by, of course, non-Native publishers. As such, many of the lessons they imparted were so subtle that a casual reader, especially one from outside the culture, might not recognize their messages.

If there were pictures, they supported the story rather than obstructing it; they provided a background rather than a foreground; and they enhanced, rather than interfered with, the reader’s imagination. And, perhaps most importantly, the pictures did not reinterpret the story; did not tell readers what to think.

“Telling readers what to think” is the main problem with some of the pieces in this collection, problems inherent in transmogrifying stories by the earlier Indian writers into a genre in which graphics foreground the story—and the graphic artists don’t always understand it or their work is mismatched. Another problem is that often, details are belabored in “dialogue bubbles,” at the cost of the integrity of the story. Yet another is that stories are sometimes “edited down” to what is seen to be the reading level for this kind of anthology. And finally, the stories would have benefited greatly with prefatory material that clearly set each in a historical, geographical, political and biographical context. This last problem, again, although inherent in this genre, stands out most glaringly in what is purported to be a “multicultural” anthology.

In the third edition (1992) of Through Indian Eyes: The Native Experience in Books for Children (Slapin and Seale, eds., New Society Publishers), there’s an essay by Lenore Keeshig-Tobias (Ojibwe), entitled, “Not Just Entertainment.” She writes:

Stories are not just entertainment. Stories are power. They reflect the deepest, the most intimate perceptions, relationships and attitudes of a people. Stories show how a people, a culture, thinks. Such wonderful offerings are seldom reproduced by outsiders.

“Native stories deal with the experiences of our humanity,” she continues, “experiences we laugh, and cry, and sweat for, experiences we learn from.”

Stories are not just for entertainment. We know that. The storyteller and writer have a responsibility—a responsibility to the people, a responsibility for the story and a responsibility to the art. The art in turn then reflects a significant and profound self-understanding. 

To Lenore’s heartfelt comments I would add that adaptors and illustrators of stories—as well as editors of anthologies, if they are honest and really care—also must own up to these responsibilities.

Some of the stories and poems in Native American Classics are incomparably beautiful—some whose texts have been left whole and some that have been adapted. Some of the art in Native American Classics is—to use a descriptor I’ve recently been known to use too often—awesome. Others, not so much.

I can’t, in good conscience, “recommend” or “not recommend” this anthology. Rather, I chose to review each entry as a separate entity. Sorry for the length of this review; it’s the best I could do for the integrity of the stories and poems therein.

Teachers who would want to use Native American Classics to introduce “reluctant readers” to Native literatures should do so with caution.


REVIEWS

“After a Sermon at the Church of Infinite Confusion,” by John E. Smelcer / art by Bahe Whitethorne, Jr. (Diné) (p. 2)

The poem beginning this anthology defies cultural logic and exemplifies incongruence between text and art. Whitethorne’s painting is of a Diné girl on Diné land. Flying into the foreground is a huge black bird, its beak wide open. The bird is larger than the child. Could be a raven, a crow, a blackbird, or maybe even a mockingbird. The painting was originally done for the cover of a children’s book called The Mockingbird’s Manual by Seth Muller (Salina Bookshelf, 2009) and someone must have thought it would be appropriate to illustrate this poem. It isn’t.

The girl’s name, “Mary Caught-in-Between,” is apparently supposed to be ironic. It’s not. It’s insulting. The singular experience of attending “sunday school” is interpreted as turning Mary’s whole world upside down; in reality, it would’ve taken years of Indian residential school to do that. Mary’s spiritual world appears to be inhabited by “Raven and Coyote,” whom she tells they aren’t “gods anymore.” But she’d know that Raven and Coyote never were gods and that you don’t worship tricksters—and you don’t talk to them, either. Mary is dressed in traditional Diné clothing, but children don’t generally dress like that just to hang out. And if she is indeed Diné, I don’t understand why a “totem pole” (on which she thinks that “god” was nailed) would even enter her consciousness. Is that big black bird supposed to be Raven? If so, there are ravens in Diné country, but Raven? No. He’s a Northwest Coast-area trickster. The poem itself is infinitely confusing, and a casual reader will probably think it’s authentic. Not recommended.


“The Soft-Hearted Sioux” (1901) by Zitkala-Sa (Yankton Nakota), adapted by Benjamin Truman, art by Jim McMunn, Timothy Truman and Mark A. Nelson (pp. 4-21)

“The Soft-Hearted Sioux” is a heartbreaking story about what happens when a Christianized Nakota man returns from mission school to proselytize his tribal community. The young man has become a stranger who disrespects his culture and community, his elders and his spiritual leader. It’s a tragic story with a tragic ending. There can be no positive outcome; Zitkala-Sa presents the dilemma and leaves out the moral. This is as it should be.

But it’s clear that the illustrators here do not “get” the subtleties of the story. While Zitkala-Sa’s Christianized narrator describes the community’s spiritual leader—aka “medicine man”—only as “tall and large” with “long strides [that]…seemed to me then as the uncanny gait of eternal death,” the artists portray him as a charlatan, as evil incarnate. He is dark and glowering and inhuman-looking, his head and face almost totally covered with eagle feathers; even his bear-claw necklace and the burning sage bundle he holds appear menacing.

When Zitkala-Sa writes, “seemed to me then,” she means that before the young man entered mission school, he saw the spiritual leader as a person whom he and the rest of the community respected. After the missionaries had finished with the young man, he saw the spiritual leader as someone with “the uncanny gait of eternal death.” Indeed, the medicine man had not changed, the young man had. Although I love “The Soft-Hearted Sioux,” I cannot recommend it in this form.


“On Wolf Mountain” (1904) by Charles Alexander Eastman (Santee), adapted by Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki) / art by Robby McMurtry (p. 22-44)

Told from the perspective of a gray wolf, “On Wolf Mountain”—from Eastman’s Red Hunters and the Animal People (1904)—shows their natural respect for, and complex relationship with, the Indian peoples who hunted large game animals on the plains. As well, it describes the relationship between the wolves and the white settlers (here, sheepherders), who attempted to disrupt the ancient rhythms of life and death, feast and hunger—a dance that existed long before the wagon trains, railroads, and banks got here. “It was altogether different with that hairy-faced man who had lately come among them,” Eastman writes, “to lay waste the forests and tear up the very earth about his dwelling…while his creatures devoured the herbage of the plains.” In one section, an enraged sheepherder whose flock is decimated by the wolves sets out to destroy them. A soldier tells him: “I told you before to lay out all the strychnine you could get hold of. We’ve got to rid this region of the Injuns and gray wolves before civilization will stick!” 

Both Bruchac’s faithful adaptation and McMurtry’s art—on a palette of mostly grays and browns—are right on target. In text and illustration, the wolves are as detailed as the humans, and on every few pages, McMurtry inserts Eastman’s face as the story unfolds. On the final page, McMurtry depicts Eastman telling his story to a group of Boy Scouts, an organization that he co-founded. “On Wolf Mountain” is highly recommended.


“The Red Man’s Rebuke” (1893) by Simon Pokagon (Potawatomi), art by Murv Jacob (Cherokee/Creek) (p.45)

This poem was part of the preface of a small 16-page booklet, a series of short essays printed on birch bark and originally written in 1893 as a political argument and protest against the Columbian Exposition. I can see Pokagon, in my mind’s eye, standing at the entrance of the Exposition, giving away (or selling) his booklet to the startled white people going in to see this celebration of the “discovery of America.” FYI, what follows are a few words from Pokagon’s speech:

In behalf of my people, the American Indians, I hereby declare to you, the pale-faced race that has usurped our lands and homes, that we have no spirit to celebrate with you the great Columbian Fair now being held in this Chicago city, the wonder of the world. No; sooner would we hold the high joy day over the graves of our departed than to celebrate our own funeral, the discovery of America. And while you who are strangers, and you who live here, bring the offering of the handiwork of your own lands and your hearts in admiration rejoice over the beauty and grandeur of this young republic and you say, “Behold the wonders wrought by our children in this foreign land,” do not forget that this success has been at the sacrifice of our homes and a once happy race.

Jacob’s painting of the death march known as the “Trail Where the People Cried,” or more popularly known as the “Trail of Tears,” is amazing. It’s wintertime and you can feel the deathly cold winter as the people lean into the freezing snow and wind. Pokagon’s short poem might have been paired with Jacob’s painting because the Potawatomi had their own “Trail of Death,” as it is known. Yet the Pokagon band of Potawatomi were not marched—they remain in southwestern Michigan—because Pokagon, as a hereditary chief, sold a substantial part of what is now the Chicago waterfront without his people’s permission. As a beginning of a discussion of Pokagon’s life, the Potawatomi people, and/or Manifest Destiny, “The Red Man’s Rebuke” is highly recommended.


“The Cattle Thief” (1914) by E. Pauline Johnson/Tekahionwake, art by Weshoyot Alvitre (Tongva) (pp. 46-53)

“The Cattle Thief,” a long poem, was originally published in Johnson’s anthology, Flint and Feather, in 1914; and is reprinted here in its entirety. An enormously popular performance poet, Johnson toured her native Canada, the US and England, placing her Mohawk name alongside her English name and strongly maintaining her identity as an Aboriginal woman. The Cree woman in “The Cattle Thief” is strong and resolute as she protests the murder of her elderly, starving father, called “cattle thief” by the white riders who have relentlessly hunted him down and now raise their knives to mutilate him. Standing over her father’s body, the woman harangues his killers, daring them to touch him.

And the words outleapt from her shrunken lips in the language of the Cree,
“If you mean to touch that body, you must cut your way through me.”
And that band of cursing settlers dropped backward one by one,
For they knew that an Indian woman roused, was a woman to let alone.

On a palette of mostly browns and blacks, Alvitre’s art effectively captures the bloodthirsty riders, the old man, and most of all, the courageous woman who strikes out against white predation of her people and land. “The Cattle Thief” is highly recommended.


“The Hunter and Medicine Legend” (1881) by Elias Johnson (Tuscarora), adapted by Andrea Grant, art by Toby Cypress (pp. 54-62)

Johnson’s story, in about three pages, is a good read. Children—and adults as well—who read or listen to it will see the action in their minds’ eyes, and will take in the lessons as well. Not so with the adaptation, which is belabored and too “cartoony” for my taste. The adapted text follows the original somewhat, but then veers into extraneous and annoying and hokey “conversation bubbles,” which explain what does not need to be explained. For instance, the text (and adapted text as well) read:

There once lived a man who was a great hunter. His generosity was…praised in all the country, for he not only supplied his own family with food, but distributed game among his friends and neighbors…. He even called the birds and animals of the forest to partake of his abundance.

Then, in the adaptation, the hunter explains to the animals, including two deer, why he is sharing his kill (a deer!) with them: “We are all connected in our life cycles...and so if I take, I will always give back.” Sounds like Tonto explaining something obvious to the Lone Ranger. Read the original. It’s much better. Not recommended.


“The White Man Wants the Indians’ Home” (date unknown; pre-1885) by James Harris Guy (Chickasaw), art by David Kainetakeron Faddon (Mohawk) (p. 63)

Little is known about Guy, other than that he was a member of the police force of the Chickasaw Nation, and that he was killed in a shootout in 1885. This poem was published in Native American Writing in the Southeast: An Anthology, 1875-1935, edited by Daniel F. Littlefield. Fadden’s amazing oil painting—on a bejeweled pallet of mostly sky blues, grass greens and browns—depicts a Mohawk couple against the backdrop of the land. Here are sunbeams breaking through the clouds, a bear in the sky, a deer in the meadow. It all comes together to carry this simple poem that laments the continued depredations of Indian lands. Recommended.


“How the White Race Came to America” (1913) by Handsome Lake (Seneca), as told to Arthur C. Parker (Seneca), adapted by Tom Pomplum / art by Roy Boney, Jr. (Cherokee) (pp.64-71)

Since its founding in the 19th Century, the Code of Handsome Lake has been a source of controversy, political divisions, and pain among the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse). It is known that Handsome Lake was recovering from alcoholism when he experienced his visions. It is also known that Handsome Lake’s mother was not Seneca and so, in this matrilineal society, he may not have been recognized as Seneca. In addition, Handsome Lake’s visions, as passed down in written form by his grandson, have a distinctively Christian influence, and forbid much of what is practiced today by the traditional Longhouse People. And finally, an important part of the controversy is whether or not it was proper to have taken his visions out of the oral tradition in the first place. That part of the Code of Handsome Lake is now produced in graphic format for the amusement of non-Natives belittles the whole thing. Not recommended.


“A Prehistoric Race” (1919) by Bertrand N.O.  Walker/Hen-To (Wyandot), adapted by Tom Pomplun, art by Tara Audibert (Maliseet) (pp. 72-79)

Bertrand N.O. Walker/Hen-To was a wonderful storyteller. In the book from which this story is told, Tales of the Bark Lodges, originally published in 1919, Grandma tells old Wyandot stories to her grandson. In these stories, the Wyandot dialect that Grandma speaks is authentic, understandable, and very, very funny; and when her grandson replies, he speaks relatively “standard” English. Since Grandma’s telling the stories to her grandson, she’s also, of course, speaking the animals’ parts. In this adaptation, Grandma tells the story, yet the animals speak dialect-free English. For instance, in the original story, Ol’ Buffalo tells Ol’ Fox that he wants to challenge Ol’ Turtle to a race. So Ol’ Buffalo says:

My frien’, I got make race with Turtle. You kind a smart, an’ you got sharp eyes, you be the judge, see who beat ‘em. You tell him, Ol’ Turtle, I beat ‘im on a ground’ or in a wata’, jus’ how he like, I don’ care nothin’. You tell ‘im come tomorro’ ova’ there by lake when sun come up jus’ ‘bout high as sycamo’ tree. You tell eva-body an’ he can come see race. I be down tha’, you tell ‘im that, Ol’ Turtle. He’s always best one, eva’ time; but I don’t think he could run, it’s too short his legs. Mebbe so he’s run good in wata’, tho’. Me, too, I could run fas’ in wata’ or anyhow. I bet I could beat ‘im’.

In the adaptation, this is what Ol’ Buffalo says:

I have to race with Turtle. You’re smart, and you’ve got sharp eyes—you be judge, and decide who wins. You tell Turtle I can beat him on land or in water, whichever he choose. Tell him to come tomorrow by the lake when the sun is as high as the sycamore trees. Tell everybody to come and see the race. Ol’ Turtle always says he’s best, but I don’t think he can run fast; his legs are too short. Maybe he’s faster in water, but I’m fast in water, too. I bet I could beat him.

Adapting a story is one thing, but to change the style and language is disrespectful and boring. And it makes Grandma appear to be unintelligent. The art is boring as well. Not recommended.


“I’m Wildcat Bill from Grizzle Hill” (ca. 1894) by Alexander Posey (Muscogee Creek), art by Marty Two Bulls, Sr. (Oglala Lakota) (pp. 80-81)

Alexander Posey was a journalist, essayist, poet and humorist, whose writing tended toward sharp political commentary. “Wildcat Bill,” which Posey wrote around 1894, is a boozing, bragging settler (“a gambler, scalper, born a scout; a tough; the man ye read about”). According to scholar Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., “‘Wildcat Bill’ is Posey’s attempt to imitate the speech of the white people then streaming into Indian Territory.” In this version, Marty Two Bulls makes sure that Wildcat Bill gets his comeuppance—from, of all things, a red-painted cigar-store Indian. Hilarious, and highly recommended.


“The Thunder’s Nest” (1851) by George Copway/Kahgegagahbowh (Mississauga Ojibwe), adapted by Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair (Anishinaabe), art by James Odjick (Anishinaabe) (pp. 82-88)

This story was first published in Copway’s The traditional history and characteristic sketches of the Ojibway nation (1851) and is the story about how the Thunders, beings who wreaked havoc on the Ojibwe people, were subdued by the bravery of a young man. Although the art takes the place of a lot of the written story, it’s a faithful adaptation of Copway’s version. There is no dialogue—for which I am grateful—and the art is spot-on perfect. The Thunders are frightening, the young man is stalwart and the heart he holds in his hands is practically pulsating. Plus—and this is indeed a “plus” in books that illustrate traditional tales—the pipe is right, the clothing is right, the dwellings are right. It’s good to have a talented Anishinaabe artist illustrating an Anishinaabe story.

My only problem with Copway’s written story is that it appears to be a Christianized version of an old story that belies Indian peoples’ traditional respect for all the elements of Creation. Not having heard an oral version, I’m kind of skeptical of this one, and don’t know if I’d recommend it.


“They May Bury the Steel” (1875) by Israel Folsom (Choctaw), art by Larry Vienneau, Jr. (p. 89)

They may bury the steel in the Indian’s breast;
They may lay him low with his sires to rest,
His scattered race from their heritage push,
But his dauntless spirit they cannot crush.

Folsom’s short, evocative poem was originally published in an essay entitled “Choctaw Traditions: Introductory Remarks,” and republished in Native American Writing in the Southeast: An Anthology, 1875-1935, by Daniel F. Littlefield and James W. Parins. I especially like the repetition of the word “they.” We all know who “they” are. Vienneau’s print of a huge raven (or Raven) on a solid blue background, black with blue shining through its outspread wings, beak open, might evoke defiance, but I think the implied equivalence between Indian and Raven is funky. Folsom’s poem is recommended; the art, not so much.


“The Story of Itsikamahidish and the Wild Potato” (1914) by Buffalo Bird Woman (Hidatsa), as told to Gilbert L. Wilson, adapted by Tom Pomplun, art by Pat N. Lewis (pp. 90-95)

This story was found in Wilson’s field notes (vol. 16, #14) and later appeared in Native American Women’s Writing: An Anthology, ca. 1800-1924, edited by Karen L. Kilcup.  According to Hidatsa cosmology, Itsikamahidish is a complex kind of guy who appears in many forms, including as a human; sometimes he appears in the form of Coyote. This is a story about how Itsikamahidish, as Coyote, discovers wild potatoes, who warn him not to eat too much of them. Of course, Coyote being who he is doesn’t listen, and the consequences of eating too many wild potatoes are not lost on the reader. This graphic version is very, well, graphic; Coyote gets his comeuppance and we all know exactly why we shouldn’t eat too many wild potatoes. In Lewis’s illustrations—on a palette of riotous colors—Itsikamahidish looks just like Wile E. Coyote, the talking potato looks like Mister Potato Head, and the circular earth lodges appear accurate. I’m confused, though, about why Itsikamahidish’s sweetheart is an Indian woman, since the Coyote stories I’ve heard take place in the time before humans were created. However, if Itsikamahidish takes many forms, maybe he also dates humans. Recommended.


“Anoska Nimiwina” (1899) by William Jones (Fox), adapted by Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki), art by Afua Richardson (pp. 96-113)

Written about ten years after the event, this is the story of how Anoska Nimiwina, the dance of peace, came through the territory of the Osakie, Shawnee, Delaware, and Kickapoo, and brought an alliance with their enemies, the Comanche, Kiowa, and Caddo. According to Jones, this version of the sacred story of how a young woman brought peace to the warring peoples of the area was brought to the Sauk and Fox by messengers of the Potawatomi. What has been erroneously referred to as the “Ghost Dance” swept through the Plains nations; and it was brought about by the same desperation. The People believed that if they danced and prayed together in this good way, the predatory whites would disappear, the murdered ancestors would return, and the land and game animals would come back.

Richardson’s art, on a gorgeous palette of mostly blues, purples and browns, make a spectacular complement to Bruchac’s amazing adaptation of a story that reverberates even today in the Idle No More movement and a strong, courageous Indian woman. Highly recommended.


“The Stolen White Girl” (1868) by John Rollin Ridge/Cheesquatalawny (Cherokee), art by Daryl Talbot (Choctaw), color by Kevin Atkinson (pp. 114-115)

John Rollin Ridge is a notorious figure in Cherokee history. His father, John Ridge, and grandfather, Major Ridge, as leaders of the “Treaty Party,” were leading signatories of the Treaty of New Echota (1836), which ceded Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi, and was said to have resulted in the death march known as The Trail Where the People Cried, more popularly called “The Trail of Tears.” Years after followers of John Ross—who had led the Cherokee opposition to the treaty—assassinated Ridge’s father and grandfather, Ridge himself killed David Kell, a member of Ross’s faction. Then Ridge fled to California, and went on to become—a writer. A child of mixed parentage, Ross also married a white woman, Elizabeth. “The Stolen White Girl” is probably a romanticized version of their courtship; absent any of this context, the poem and illustrations read like an early version of the “dime novels” and their successors, the “Indian Romance” novels (“Savage Heart,” “Savage Flames,” “Beloved Savage,” you get the picture). Not recommended.


“The Middle-Man” (1909) by Royal Roger Eubanks (Cherokee), adapted by Jon Proudstar (Yaqui, Maya), art by Terry Laban (pp. 116-129)

In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act, also euphemistically known as the “General Allotment Act,” which broke up the vast tribal lands and allotted small portions (about 160 acres) to individual Indian families to farm. The “surplus” lands were then opened up to settlers, and within decades, whites owned the vast majority of the lands. But “most” was not “enough,” and along came the real estate speculators, who, by using the American legal system, bilked Indian individuals of their land allotments. Eubanks, who had pursued careers in teaching and art, became famous for his biting political cartoons and cartoon-illustrated stories, one of which became “The Middle-Man.” Although there is some information on the Dawes Act here (in tiny print at the bottom of three of the ten-page story), it is not enough to carry this adaptation, which will lead readers to believe that Indians were (and are) unintelligent and easily duped. Not recommended.


“Changing Is Not Vanishing” (1916) by Carlos Montezuma/Wassaja (Apache), art by Arigon Starr (Kickapoo) (p. 130)

Carlos Montezuma was a nationally known political leader, writer, essayist and poet, who aimed his political arrows at the white establishment and the BIA for the devastation imposed on Native peoples, and on those who believed the stereotypical portrayal of Indians in the media. Montezuma was not, as the notes here read, “the first Native American to earn a medical degree in an American University.” Actually, Charles Eastman (Santee Dakota) earned his medical degree in the same year, 1889. (Caution: Do your own research and don’t believe everything you read in Wikipedia.)

“Changing Is Not Vanishing” is Montezuma’s answer to those who would believe that changing is vanishing. Arigon Starr’s illustration, of four contemporary traditional and modern Indian people, includes two women, of whom Montezuma’s poem left out. Highly recommended.


“Two Wolves,” by Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki), adapted by Richard Van Camp (Dogrib Dene) / art by John Findley (pp. 131-139)

“Two Wolves” is one of my three hands-down favorites of this collection. (The others are “Anoska Nimiwina,” which Bruchac adapted; and “The Cattle Thief by E. Pauline Johnson.) “Two Wolves” is the story of a young Abenaki, just out of his teens, back from fighting in the Civil War. Hired by the Town Board to hunt down and destroy a wolf who has killed some sheep, Ash has been traumatized by the killing he has had to do in the war. The wolf has been wounded and scarred as well, and the irony is not lost on the young man: “That’s a good one, isn’t it?” he tells the wolf, “an Indian boy getting paid to scalp a wolf?” Ash, after tossing some of his dinner to the wolf (now named “Catcher”), decides he has “done enough killing for all of us,” and tells his new companion of his plans to head north to Canada. In the north, he says, is “land where there’s woods and deer. No sheep, no bounties paid for wolves or men.”

Findley’s art is amazing, realistic and detailed (save the members of the Town Board, who are appropriately caricatured). Especially poignant is Catcher’s sniffing at Ash’s wolf skin-lined bedroll. In the last two panels, the two lie down together, Ash’s head on his bedroll, and Catcher at his side. Or is Ash’s head on Catcher? Both art and story complement each other, a perfect balance, neither competing for domination. With “Two Wolves,” an anti-war story told in an “Indian” way—no “explanation,” no stated moral, no heavy-handed polemic—the reader is left to ponder the issues and explore the possibilities. Beautiful. Highly recommended. 

—Beverly Slapin