Visit the “American Indians in Children’s Lit” blog
A couple of days ago, I wrote a post called “Punishing Laura Ingalls Wilder.” This post was about the recent decision by the Association for Library Service to Children to change the name of its Laura Ingalls Wilder Award to the Children’s Literature Legacy Award. The name change was made because “Laura Ingalls Wilder has long held a complex legacy, as her books reflect racist and anti-Native sentiments and are not universally embraced.”
Read my post for a more complete explanation of the decision and my take on preserving historical literature, but here’s the gist: I feel removing Wilder’s name from the award punishes Wilder for writing about the time period in which she lived. I also feel the decision is a way to indirectly control the work of authors.
In the post, I mentioned a blog called American Indians in Children’s Literature (AICL). This website was established in 2006 by Debbie Reese, a former teacher, university professor, and Nambe Pueblo Indian woman. The site “provides critical perspectives and analysis of indigenous peoples in children’s and young adult books, the school curriculum, popular culture and society.”
While I disagree with the ASLC’s decision to remove Wilder’s name from their award, I appreciate the conversation that has been sparked by the decision. As a result, I hope to broaden my own knowledge of accurate, unbiased Native American literature. The site’s “Best Books” tab contains an inventory of selections of books by year, from 2010 to 2017. Some of the lists are divided by elementary, middle, and high school.
The middle school book that made the list for 2017 is a story by Oklahoma Choctaw Tim Tingle called “Choctaw Bigfoot, Midnight in the Mountains.” It is found in an anthology called Flying Lessons & Other Stories. I have ordered a copy for my classroom library and will share about it in an upcoming post.
The AICL site also contains full-length articles to help you learn more about Native American literature. For example, you’ll find “Erasing Native American Stereotypes,” and “Getting the Indian Out of the Cupboard: Using Information Literacy to Promote Critical Thinking.” I did notice that a few links did not connect to the articles; however, there are so many titles in the sidebar, you’ll no doubt locate several to read.
Furthermore, the articles dig deep by providing analysis of specific titles. Read “An Open Letter to Jan Brett,” as an example. Here’s another: “A Teacher Reconsiders Virginia Grossman’s Ten Little Rabbits.” This review takes issue with the book’s language, stereotypes, illustrations, and other elements that provide misinformation about Native American tribes.
In fact, many items on the AICL site take many issues with many authors, especially non-Native authors. At times, it seems— based on the tone of the reviews and articles— that non-Native authors should just avoid writing anything regarding Native Americans because they’ll never get it right.
In any case, you owe it to yourself and your students to surf around on the AICL website. It’s one of those sites that I can get lost in quickly.
I think I probably speak for many teachers when I say that my knowledge of literature written by Native Americans is negligible. The AICL site goes a long way in helping me to learn more.
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