Showing posts with label Reading While White. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reading While White. Show all posts

Sunday, April 28, 2019

A Chronological Look at Events Launched by Harassment on April 11 at the Children's Book Guild of Washington DC

Note from Debbie: If there are additional items to insert or add, please let me know. If I've made errors in my documentation below, please let me know about that, too. 


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Thursday, April 11th, 2019, 12:30 Central Time 

I received a phone call from Carole Lindstrom. She is Ojibwe. I wrote about her picture book, Girls Dance Boys Fiddle in 2014. Carole had just left a luncheon at the Children's Book Guild of Washington, DC. Author Jacqueline Jules had invited her to attend. Carole had been to Guild events before.

At the luncheon, Carole told me, Jules asked her about my work. But it wasn't a straightforward question. The tone in which questions were asked told Carole that Jules did not like my work. Carole told her right away that she considers me a friend but Jules ignored that and continued to press her. Carole told her that within the Native writers community, they value my critiques. Jules persisted. It became increasingly uncomfortable for Carole, so she stood to leave. Jules stood, too, blocking Carole's path to the door, and placed her hands on Carole's arms. Carole asked her to remove her hands. Jules did so, and Carole left the table. Jules followed, and even though Carole asked Jules to leave her alone, Jules followed her out of the private dining room of the restaurant, out of the building, and down the street, calling to her that I am keeping Native writers from telling our stories. Carole ducked behind a city bus, Jules returned to the building, and a few minutes later, Carole sent me a Facebook message asking if she could call me. I said yes, and we talked for several minutes. She reached out to others, too, who offered comfort and solace. What happened to her was not acceptable, at all.


Wednesday, April 17, 2019 (this item added April 28 at 5:55 PM)

Carole wrote to Rhoda Trooboff, 2018-2019 President of the Guild, documenting her experience.


Thursday, April 18, 2019, 9:38 AM (this item added April 28 at 5:55 PM)

Trooboff acknowledged receipt of Carole's letter and that she would be in touch with Carole the following week.


Thursday, April 18, 2019, 1:20 PM (this item added April 28 at 5:55 PM)

Trooboff wrote again to Carole, telling her that she has forwarded her letter to Jules and that a Guild member will be in touch with her. She took these steps (rather than wait, as the morning email had indicated) because she had learned that details about what happened were posted to social media (the post Trooboff is referencing is a private--not public--conversation).


Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Martha Brockenbrough, Julie Foster Hedlund, and Ishta Mercurio posted an Open Letter to the Children's Book Guild. Reading While White hosted the letter. People were asked to cosign it using the comment option or by writing directly to Reading While White.


Thursday, April 25, 2019, 9:00 AM

The editors at Reading While White added a note to the top of the Open Letter, indicating that they would close the comments at 8:00 PM Eastern Time and that the letter would be sent to the Guild the following morning. By 8:00, there were approximately 400 signatures on the letter, including many from Native readers, writers, and librarians. The letter documents

  • What happened at the luncheon
  • That nobody at the luncheon intervened to stop Jules or comfort Carole
  • The inappropriate sharing of Carole's letter about the incident, with Jules

It also states that they believe the Guild owes an apology to Carole and to me. (I agree they owe one to Carole. The harassment did not happen to me; even if I had been there, I'm skeptical of apologies as I said in this thread on Twitter, because I think they too often function to alleviate guilt of the harasser and when extended, shift the weight of the incident to the person who was harmed in the first place. When the incident is one like this, the harm is usually the most recent one inflicted on a Native or person of color. With that as context, an apology without action is meaningless.)


Thursday, April 25, 2019, 4:13 PM


Using their Twitter account (@BookGuildDC), the Guild said:

Screen capture of tweet
The Guild's board met to work on an action plan spurred by events during and following our last meeting. To those of you who have made suggestions on how we can be and do better: thank you. We will continue to work and learn. childrensbookguild.org/april-11-lunch…



The tweet included a link to Guild Statement Regarding Incident at April 11 Luncheon, at their website. The apology was also posted to their Facebook page at 4:11 PM. I am highlighting a word in the paragraph to compare it with a revised apology issued later:
Guild Statement Regarding Incident at April 11th Luncheon
Screen capture of the
first paragraph of Guild
statement. Click to enlarge. 
The Board and members of The Children's Book Guild of Washington, D.C., apologize for the incident that occurred at our luncheon recently. This interaction and subsequent steps caused a guest pain and seemed to demonstrate racial and cultural insensitivity. Please know that these actions were not intentional and do not reflect the core values of the Guild. We apologize for the additional distress caused when the complaint was shared with the member involved in the incident.

Friday, April 26, 2019

People objected to their use of "seemed" and "not intentional." The Guild subsequently revised the language but did not note their revision. Not noting the revision hides the initial error and, in effect, obscures the fact that they recognize their initial error. The revision was to remove "seemed" and insert "gave the guest reason to believe" (highlight below is mine):
The Board and members of The Children's Book Guild of Washington, D.C., apologize for the incident that occurred at our luncheon recently. This interaction and subsequent steps caused a guest pain and gave the guest reason to believe that the member demonstrated racial and cultural insensitivity. Please know that these actions were not intentional and do not reflect the core values of the Guild. We apologize for the additional distress caused when the complaint was shared with the member involved in the incident.

Sunday, April 28, 2019

The Guild statement was revised again! At present, "gave the guest reason to believe" is gone:
The Board and members of The Children's Book Guild of Washington, D.C., apologize for the incident that occurred at our luncheon recently. It is clear that this interaction and subsequent steps caused a guest pain and demonstrated racial and cultural insensitivity. 
I am glad to see--with this latest revision--this note at the bottom of the page:
*This wording has been revised to reflect the statement originally approved by the Board of the Children's book Guild."
But it raises questions, too. That note suggests that the statement we saw was changed by someone before it was published on the 25th, but, who modified statement that the Board originally approved? And why? If there are more developments on this, I will be back to add them.

The remainder of the Guild's statement includes steps they will take, including "Adopt an anti-harassment policy and take other steps to prevent harassment or intimidation of any form at Guild events."

****

Before hitting "publish" on this post, I also want to address an apology Jules posted to the Guild's Facebook page with their statement. As noted above, the Guild published their statement on their Facebook page at 4:11 PM on Thursday, April 25th.

On Friday, April 26, at 5:45 PM, this comment appeared in response to my question about their use of "seemed" (on Facebook, when you submit a comment, the comment appears with blue letters to indicate who is posting the comment. Jules comment was posted from The Children's Book Guild of Washington, DC, which suggests she manages their Facebook page. She added her name to the comment, making clear that this particular comment is from her and not the Guild):

The Children's Book Guild of Washington, DC I am very, very sorry. I made a serious lapse in judgment in my conversation at the Children’s Book Guild Meeting on April 11th. I had hoped to discuss two particular books that touched me deeply. It was inappropriate and insensitive of me to ask a Native American guest to interpret or discuss Dr. Reese’s critical analyses of these two books. My intention was to discuss two particular books and not to criticize Dr. Reese. 

When the guest became angry and got up to leave, I saw my mistake and tried to apologize. I followed her outside to apologize further. I honestly thought I was demonstrating how sorry I was. I realize now, much too late, how very differently my attempts to apologize came across. I am mortified that the guest felt harassed, and I am extremely sorry I offended her. I have written to the guest twice to apologize. 

Jacqueline Jules

In her comment, she writes that "it was inappropriate and insensitive" for her to "ask a Native American guest to interpret or discuss Dr. Reese's critical analyses."

When conversations about the incident at the Guild began to take place, I learned from several other Native and Writers of Color that they have been in similar positions at functions. They are pressed to respond to queries about my work. When I saw that, I tweeted a request that people with concerns about my work can talk to me directly about their concerns. That's a sincere request.

Without question, people at writers gatherings can--and should--talk about criticism but the way that it is done is important! Jules wrote that what she did was "inappropriate and insensitive." To me, her words affirm Carole's account of how the questions were asked at the luncheon.

Jules second paragraph says "When the guest became angry" -- but written that way, it obscures the fact that it was her words and actions that caused Carole to respond as she did. She says she's "mortified" that Carole "felt harassed" -- but written that way, Jules hides the fact that Carole was, indeed, harassed. Jules tells us that she's written to Carole "twice to apologize." If the content of the apologies was anything like what she wrote in that second paragraph, those apologies are not sincere.

****

I'll be adding links to additional responses to the Guild. There's a lot on Twitter that I may add, but will start with these two. If you see others, let me know!

April 26, 2019

An Open Letter to Ms. Trooboff and the Leadership of the Children's Book Guild of Washington, DC by Ishta Mercurio-Wentworth

White People Apologizing by Monica Edinger at educating alice


May 1, 2019

Luncheons Shouldn't Come with a Side of Harassment: An Interview with Author Carole Lindstrom by Lisa Krok at School Library Journal's Teen Librarian Toolbox blog. (Note on May 2, early morning: late yesterday afternoon/early evening, Krok's article was taken down "for review." When the article is restored I will restore the link. For now it goes to a pdf copy of it.) Update, May 2, evening: holding off on that pdf till there is further clarity on why the original post was taken down.)

Sunday, January 21, 2018

Allie Jane Bruce's review of LAURA INGALLS IS RUINING MY LIFE

Eds. note: AICL is pleased to publish Allie Jane Bruce's review of Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life, by Shelley Tougas. It was published in 2017 by Roaring Book Press (Macmillan). To read the introduction to this review, go to Allie's post at Reading While White.

Here's a description of the book (from the Macmillan website):
A life on the prairie is not all its cracked up to be for one girl whose mom takes her love of the Little House series just a bit too far.
Charlotte’s mom has just moved the family across the country to live in Walnut Grove, “childhood home of pioneer author Laura Ingalls Wilder.” Mom’s idea is that the spirit of Laura Ingalls will help her write a bestselling book. But Charlotte knows better: Walnut Grove is just another town where Mom can avoid responsibility. And this place is worse than everywhere else the family has lived—it’s freezing in the winter, it’s small with nothing to do, and the people talk about Laura Ingalls all the time. Charlotte’s convinced her family will not be able to make a life on the prairie—until the spirit of Laura Ingalls starts getting to her, too.

****

Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life, by Shelley Tougas.  
Roaring Brook Press.  
Reviewed by Allie Jane Bruce.
NB - I read, and used page numbers from, a galley of this book.
At the outset of Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life, twelve-year-old Charlotte makes it clear that she finds her mom’s obsession with Laura Ingalls irritating. Any time Mom or Rose (Charlotte’s younger sister) reference the Little House books or Laura Ingalls, Charlotte’s reaction is somewhere in the ballpark of “Seriously?” or “Ugh.” On page 8, Charlotte thinks:
Realistically, I was stuck with Laura for a year. I had to deal with her the way you deal with an upset stomach. You wait it out. Eventually you puke and feel better. 
On their move from Lexington, Kentucky to Walnut Grove, Minnesota, Mom decides they must stop and eat at a diner they see, called "Prairie Diner". When Mom starts to engage a waitress on the subject, Charlotte thinks (p. 9): 
I needed to shut this down before Mom launched her crazy spirit-of-Laura explanation. 
It is important to note, however, that Charlotte’s negative reactions have nothing to do with any inkling that the books, or Laura herself, are racist or problematic. Charlotte is irritated because she is a snarky, often pessimistic character, and the idea of Laura’s spirit calling out to Mom’s creative soul rubs her the wrong way.

On page 34, in her new classroom, Charlotte notices (p. 34): 
There were twenty-four students in our new class, including Julia [their landlady’s granddaughter], Freddy [her twin brother], and me. Six were Asian. Julia was the only Hispanic student, as far as I could tell. Everyone else was white. 
I wondered, upon reading this, whether all those White kids were actually White, or whether Charlotte might be misidentifying someone; many people present, or pass for, White but in fact identify as Native, Latinx, or multiracial. I wondered more about this on page 36, as the kids are being given an assignment. Mrs. Newman (her teacher) says:
“You will write about how Laura Ingalls and her story have influenced our community and affected your life. [...] You don’t have to be a fan. I know there are students who haven’t read the books, which saddens me greatly, but if you live here, there’s no getting around Laura’s influence. Even if you haven’t read the books, which truly saddens me, you are aware of how she’s shaped our town, and if you’re not aware, that is heartbreaking.” 
I tried to imagine myself as a Native kid reading this passage, or to take it a step further, as a White-presenting Native kid in Charlotte’s class. How would this talk about not reading the books, and not being aware of how Laura Ingalls shaped their town, as “saddening” and “heartbreaking” land with me? Reading it with this mindset, it made me angry. Native people were subject to genocide and forced relocation because of the invasion of people like Laura Ingalls; but what’s really heartbreaking is if someone hasn’t read or appreciated her books?

Charlotte finds the assignment annoying, but not problematic. She writes an essay titled “Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life” and describes how angry she is that her flighty mother moved them to the town of Walnut Grove to chase Laura’s creative energy.

Soon after, Charlotte gets sick and has to stay home from school for several days. Mom reads to her from the Little House books, which Charlotte likes. Charlotte describes how much Ma hates Indians, the first reference thus far to any racism or problematic content in the Little House books (p. 46):
And Ma, who is the sweetest character in the book, hates Indians, and I mean hates hates hates them. Maybe it was because the Ingalls built their cabin on Indian land, and the Indians weren’t too happy about it. In the end, both the Indians and the Ingalls pack up their stuff and move. The Indians are forced to leave their hunting grounds, and the Ingalls end up on the banks of Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, because all Pa wants to do is move. 
Charlotte offers all of this without editorializing or offering her opinion on Ma’s opinions, which I found strange, since Charlotte offers her opinion on everything, especially if she finds it annoying. Are we to conclude that Charlotte doesn’t find Ma’s bigotry annoying? At best, she is dispassionate about it.

On page 52, Charlotte’s mom changes her mind about her writing project. Where she’d previously intended to write an historical fiction about an orphan girl moving to the prairie, she now wants to write about (p. 52)
...twins who sneak aboard this space shuttle that’s going to colonize Mars... Mom says it’s the same story because it’s about exploration and pioneers. So we’re still here for Laura. She still needs Laura’s spirit.
This is interesting, because I’ve seen outer space exploration and aliens used as metaphors for colonialism and invasion before, in books like The Knife of Never Letting Go, Landscape With Invisible Hand, and The True Meaning of Smekday. I have mixed feelings about them. I appreciate the emphasis on interrogating invaders; and, I think it’s problematic to draw a parallel between aliens and Native humans, or to cast Native and non-Native people as equal parties in any story about colonization. I think Mom’s idea for a Mars book, which rests on an analogy in which White pioneers are to humans as Native people are to literal Martians, is deeply problematic. Over the course of Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life, Charlotte and others question whether the Mars book is a good idea, but not for the reasons I state above.

Charlotte reads an essay on Manifest Destiny, and soon after that, on the Transcontinental Railroad. About the Manifest Destiny essay, Charlotte thinks (p. 79-80):

The essay, “Manifest Destiny and America’s Expansion,” was long and boring. If you’ve heard people say something is as boring as watching paint dry, well, the Manifest Destiny essay would bore the paint. [...]  The essay went like this: After colonists won independence from England, American leaders thought it was destiny for our country to grow. If ordinary Americans could own land, not just rich people, then they would be committed to making the country strong and the best in the word. So the government bought land around Louisiana from France and fought with Mexico to get even more land. And pretty soon the country stretched “from sea to shining sea,” just like the song “America the Beautiful” said.

Charlotte’s only problem with the essay is that she found it boring.

On page 82, Charlotte discusses the Transcontinental Railroad with Rose (her younger sister) and we get our first inkling that she’s starting to see some of these problems. After describing the hardships in The Long Winter, Rose says (p. 93-94):

“Finally spring came and the trains arrived with supplies. So many pioneers would’ve died without trains bringing stuff from the East. Trains were lifesavers.” 
I flopped on my bed. “Tell that to Chinese workers. Tell that to the buffalo.” 
“What do you mean?” 
“The railroad company hired workers from China and barely paid them and had them do all the dangerous work, like blowing up tunnels. Lots of them died. When the trains were up and running, men would sit in train cars and shoot buffalo for fun. They didn’t even eat the meat. The buffalo just rotted and pretty soon buffalo became almost extinct.”

I like this exchange, although I wonder why we haven’t heard more of Charlotte’s inner thoughts about this--she seems to be reevaluating her initial take on Manifest Destiny.

Next, Charlotte learns about the U.S.-Dakota War (although the book doesn’t call it this). She reads about the “Dakota Sioux Conflict”.  Her teacher says (p. 114-115):

“I want you to start with the Dakota Sioux Conflict because it was essentially a war that happened right here in southwestern Minnesota. The whole thing was overshadowed by the Civil War, so most people know very little about it. You’ll make some connections between it and the Ingalls family.” 
“Like Ma hating Indians?” 
“In a way,” she said. “No doubt she’d heard about Indians killing settlers in southwestern Minnesota, and she was afraid.” 
“It’s not like she could call 9-1-1.” 
“Indians were afraid of the settlers, too. The government broke treaty after treaty. They didn’t give the Indians supplies that were promised, and the Indians were afraid they’d starve that winter.”

Having learned that one outcome of the U.S.-Dakota war was the largest mass execution in U.S. history, I am troubled by this “fair and balanced” account.

A few pages later, Mrs. Newman assigns Charlotte an essay on the Trail of Tears (p. 126):
She handed me an article. I glanced at the title—something about Native Americans and a Trail of Tears. “Here’s one more thing I want you to read. You can take your time, but I do want to discuss it.” 
On page 132, Charlotte and Julia (their landlady’s granddaughter) have a conversation in which they talk about how “perfect” Pa Ingalls was as a dad (conveniently omitting his blackface performance). Julia also says, describing what she wrote about in her award-winning essay on Laura Ingalls (p. 132):

“The Asians here are Hmong, which is like Vietnamese, but not exactly. Tons of them came to Minnesota after the war in Vietnam.” 
“Seems kind of random.” 
“It’s like a new group of settlers came to the prairie.” 

I cringe at several things here--casually describing Hmong people as “like Vietnamese, but not exactly” (how would that land with a Hmong child reading it?), “random” (in the large picture, Hmong people living in Walnut Grove isn’t any more “random” than Charlotte, or any White people, living in Walnut Grove, but this casts them as “other” and somehow different). As for “a new group of settlers came to the prairie” -- to equate Westward invasion and Manifest Destiny with the experiences of immigrants of color living in a White-dominated society is simply inaccurate, and troubling, in that it ignores the power dynamic Hmong people face and erases the fact that White people invaded Native lands (if White people invading the West were “immigrants” the way that Hmong people are immigrants in this context, Native people would have no legitimate grievances).

There’s an argument, of course, that Julia is twelve years old and doesn’t understand these dynamics; I do not, however, get the sense that Tougas recognizes the problems with what Julia says (at least, she does not recognize them in the text) or is presenting this conversation as a teachable moment, as she never counters Julia’s ideas. On the contrary, I get a strong feeling that we as readers are supposed to be learning and taking in what Julia says here.

In this same conversation, one of the more interesting things in the book happens. Julia describes another classmate, Lanie, whose essay was passed over for an award (p. 134):
“She [Lanie] wrote that we should have a museum for Native Americans because they lived around here first, and they had these battles with settlers.  She said the early farmers shouldn't be called settlers because the land was already settled. They were more like invaders.’ Julia leaned forward and whispered, ‘My grandma heard Mrs. Newman liked Lanie's essay because it showed critical thinking, but Gloria and Teresa said no way.  Basically I was the second choice.” 
(Gloria and Teresa run the Laura Ingalls museum, where Julia and Charlotte work after school.)

I would so, so have loved to see this line of thought extended. Proposing the word “invaders” instead of “settlers” is a big deal, and an important conversation. Alas, this language is never revisited; Charlotte and Julia encounter some mean boys, and further solidify their friendship. Charlotte doesn’t comment on the settlers/invaders question, internally or overtly. This scene factors into my conclusion that Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life evolves, rather than interrupts, racism. More on that later.

The Trail of Tears essay, which Mrs. Newman assigned to Charlotte on page 126, is next referenced, briefly, on page 169, when Charlotte asks Rose if she’s seen the essay (Rose took it to read it). On page 173, Charlotte and Mrs. Newman have a brief conversation about it; Mrs. Newman brings it up again on page 226. Charlotte still hasn’t read it.

On page 198, police show up at Charlotte’s house with the news that someone vandalized the Ingalls museum (spray painted “I hate Walnut Grove I hate Lara”); they suspect Charlotte. This plotline dominates the rest of the book, and culminates in (spoiler) Rose confessing that she did it.  Some relevant passages I pulled (p. 206-207):

Everyone in Walnut Grove was proud of the town’s history. When they drove by the museum and saw those ugly words, they’d feel angry and sad.

But that didn’t explain my feelings, either. They went even deeper than that. I realized I felt terrible for Laura [...] after living on the lonely Kansas prairie, the Ingalls had found civilization in Walnut Grove. They had a real school, a nice church, and good neighbors. [...] 
“Mom, I think I’m feeling Laura’s energy—for real. She’s sad about what happened to the museum. [...] Whoever did it couldn’t even spell her name. They’re stupid and mean.’” 

I paused at this. Are spray painted words on the side of the Ingalls museum uglier than the existence of a museum glorifying participants in Manifest Destiny?

I had similar thoughts regarding this exchange between Charlotte and Mrs. Newman (p. 225-226):

“I know I wrote a negative essay, but I was mad when I wrote it. I’ve spent a couple months in Laura’s world. I like her. [...] Maybe the person who did it doesn’t even hate Laura Ingalls. Maybe they just wanted to destroy something that makes other people happy.” 
“Unfortunately, there are people like that in the world.” 

Then, there’s this conversation between Charlotte and her mom (p. 207-208):

“There’s something about our country and the West,” she said in a dreamy voice. “It’s romantic. [...] we have this sense of pride in conquering the Wild West.”

“When they built the railroad, men would ride the trains with shotguns and kill buffalo just because it was fun, like an old-fashioned version of a video game.” 
“That’s terrible,” Mom said.

“Westward expansion stunk if you were Native American.”

“I know.”

This is never followed up on. Mom never accounts for why, if she knew all along that Westward Invasion "stunk" for Native people, she felt comfortable talking in a "dreamy" voice about the "romance" and "pride" of "conquering" the "Wild West". I conclude from this that Mom values Native lives less than she values the romantic story she tells herself about American history. I wondered if Tougas ever considered having Charlotte ask something like, "Well, if you knew, why did you say what you just said?" and I wonder what Mom would reply. "Because I weighed the injustice of the atrocity of Westward Invasion against the mental discomfort it would cause me to let go of my romantic vision of history and decided to prioritize my gooey feelings," perhaps? Or maybe a simple, "Because I know, but I just don't care that much about Native people." 

On page 275-278, Rose comes clean and admits to vandalizing the Ingalls museum. Her speech is the closest the book comes to actually interrogating racism, and I’m sure will be referenced by many as evidence that Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life is, in fact, anti-racist. Mom puts lavender oil in a diffuser to help them relax and stay focused on why she did it. Here’s what Rose says (275-278):

“I read Charlotte’s school assignment about the Trail of Tears. The article was about how settling the West destroyed the Indians. They literally had to walk hundreds of miles so the pioneers could have their own land. And they got sick and there wasn’t enough food and the weather was terrible, but the government didn’t care and the pioneers didn’t care. The Indians had to keep marching, and tons of them died. Tons!”

At that point, Mom dabbed the oil behind her ears.

Rose said, “We have museums all over the United States bragging about how great we are because we built a new country. We have books and movies and songs. But our stories are wrong.” Her shoulders slumped. “Can I try some of that oil?”

I put a drop on my finger and rubbed it on Rose’s wrist. Freddy said, “I know what you mean, but I’m glad we’re here. I’m glad there are fifty states and roads and the Internet and that I get to live in this country.”

“If you’re glad, then you don’t know what I mean,” Rose said.

[...]

“So you decided to spray-paint Laura’s building because the government was terrible to the Indians?” Freddy said. “Am I the only one who thinks that’s ridiculous?”

“No. I think it’s ridiculous,” I said.

“Let her finish,” Mom said. “Go on, Rose.”

Rose frowned. “Here’s something I bet you didn’t know. In the first version of Little House On the Prairie, which came out almost one hundred years ago, Laura described the prairie like this: ‘There the wild animals wandered and fed as though they were in a pasture that stretched much farther than a man could see, and there were no people. Only Indians lived there.’ I memorized it.”

Freddy thought for a minute. “So? What’s your point?”

“She said no people. Only Indians. She basically said Indians aren’t people.”

Slowly Freddy’s face registered her point. Mom said, “I don’t remember that. I’ve read that book a dozen times.”

“Someone wrote to the publisher, and they changed the word people to settlers for the next printing. Laura felt terrible above it. She didn’t mean it the way it came out. Still, it bugs me. I can’t stop thinking about it. That’s why I quit reading the biography.”

“I had no idea,” Mom said. “How did I not know this?”

“That’s the way people were back then,” Freddy said. “It’s not right to blame people now for what happened one hundred years ago. Laura Ingalls didn’t force the Indians to move. The museum ladies didn’t force them to move, either. Do you want us to demolish all our cities and make it buffalo land again?”

“That’s not the point!” Rose yelled. “You got me all side-tracked.”

I love what Rose says. Of all the characters in the book, she’s the one who interests me most, because what she learns about Manifest Destiny, the Transcontinental Railroad, and the Trail of Tears is real for her. She has, at this point, learned that a societal sickness leads to dehumanizing Native people, and to a museum celebrating Manifest Destiny--and upon learning this, she actively changes.  Early in the book, Rose is downright tickled to be living in Walnut Grove, and wants to be Laura in the annual town play (p. 94). Upon learning that her prior version of reality is wrong, Rose changes her mindset and her behavior. Is she right to spray paint the museum? Of course not, but that act of vandalism is trivial compared to the larger systemic and cultural problems with which she is grappling.

Unfortunately, Charlotte’s reactions, and the ultimate note on which the book finishes, undo much of the good work Rose does in these few pages (and make me wonder if it’s possible for an author to write a character--Rose, in this case--who understands the world better than the author does).

On page 288, Charlotte and Mrs. Newman again discuss the Trail of Tears article, which, again, was introduced on page 126. Charlotte still hasn’t read it, but lies and says she did. Mrs. Newman isn’t fooled, and they talk about why Charlotte hasn’t read it (p. 288-289):

“Did you read the article about Native Americans?”

“The Trail of Tears article?” My eyes went wide, and I stumbled through an answer, trying to remember what Rose had said about it. “Yes. It was interesting and fascinating. And very sad, too, which is why the word tears is in it. Because it’s so sad.”

[...]

“Why? Why haven’t you read it?”

I shrugged.

[...]

“I don’t need to read it to know it’s really, really bad. I’ve read enough about westward expansion.”

“Reading and understanding are two different things.”

“I know terrible things happened to Native Americans. And terrible things happened to the Chinese with the railroad and poor white farmers in the Depression and all the people fighting over who owned Texas. I’m twelve. I can only take so much sad stuff and guilt before I get Prairie Madness.” Mrs. Newman didn’t respond, so I said, “I will read it. I promise. But not for a while.”

Mrs. Newman thought for a moment. “You have the intellectual capacity to think critically about history. I didn’t consider how overwhelming it might be.”

“I don’t want to hate Laura Ingalls or pioneers or America.”

“That’s absolutely not my intention. It’s just that our country’s story is more complicated than most people realize. Laura’s story is more complicated.”

My heart sank when I read this.  My hopes were up so high, after Rose’s awakening, and then… sigh.

The effect of this passage--especially after Rose’s speech--is to recenter and re-prioritize Whiteness at the expense of Native people.

Let’s unpack. Charlotte says the Trail of Tears is “sad… which is why the word tears is in it.”  It’s supposed to be funny, a moment of lightness and humor. Four thousand people died on the Trail of Tears. Charlotte, and Tougas, trivialize their deaths in this passage. And, ultimately, Charlotte makes an active and conscious decision to prioritize her own comfort over all else. Children younger than Charlotte died because of the 1830 Indian Removal Act (Trail of Tears); Charlotte decides she can’t even read about that, and Mrs. Newman comforts and her affirms her fragility in this moment.

Read this again from the point of view of a Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, or Chickasaw child who has heard about the Trail of Tears since infancy. That child does not have the luxury of waiting until they’re older to understand the concept of genocide. How would Charlotte’s joke about the Trail of Tears, and her decision to wait to read the article until she can handle it better, land with that child? What about Charlotte’s, and Mrs. Newman’s, declaration that they don’t want to hate Laura Ingalls or the government forces that destroyed Native lives--how would a Native child, who feels rightful and understandable rage, feel upon reading those words? I’d feel minimized, gaslit, like my and my people’s concerns had been erased--for the billionth time.

What makes this so infuriating is that it comes on the heels of Rose’s speech about the injustices of westward invasion. It’s like Tougas dangles a book, a world, in which White people are forced to reckon with the ugliness of Manifest Destiny and all that came along with it--and then snatches it away, says “Nope, sorry, Native kids, we have to comfort and prioritize the status quo at your expense.  Again.”

Another example of Tougas’ dangling, then snatching away, genuine equity for Native people is in her treatment of Gloria and Teresa, who run the Ingalls museum. Remember that Gloria and Teresa rejected an essay that argued for justice for Native people (p. 134) Julia tells Charlotte:
“She [Lanie] wrote that we should have a museum for Native Americans because they lived around here first, and they had these battles with settlers.  She said the early farmers shouldn't be called settlers because the land was already settled. They were more like invaders." Julia leaned forward and whispered, "My grandma heard Mrs. Newman liked Lanie's essay because it showed critical thinking, but Gloria and Teresa said no way. Basically I was the second choice.” 
I was sure, when I read this, that at some point Charlotte (or Rose) would hold Gloria and Teresa accountable; that they would have to take a hard look at what it meant to shut down, refuse to hear, a truth-telling essay, and what messages they sent to Native kids when they refused to give a platform to a voice advocating for a Native museum. This never happens. In fact, later in the book Charlotte thinks well of Gloria and Teresa as support for her (p. 149):
Actually, the people who'd been my cheerleaders lately weren't my family.  Mrs. Newman. Gloria. Teresa...” 
Gloria and Teresa also serve to further the Charlotte-as-suspect plotline; thanks to a misunderstanding, Charlotte yells at them, which lends credence to the theory that she was the vandal. Towards the end of the book, Charlotte realizes she needs to apologize to them.

At the end of the day, Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life gives lip service to anti-racist and anti-colonialist advocates. Their arguments and voices are given minimal space in the book; Rose’s speech is great, but it’s three pages in a 296-page book. The book prioritizes White comfort and White fragility over justice and equity for Native people (who are never actually given a voice--no tribe is named, no Native individuals are referenced or quoted, and oh, how great would it have been for Charlotte and co. to delve deep into The Birchbark House series?). Characters like Gloria and Teresa who enact and perpetuate White supremacy are not held accountable, but are framed as overwhelmingly sympathetic--nice White ladies. And ultimately, according to Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life, while it’s important for everyone to understand the complexity of history, it’s equally important for White kids to wait until they feel up to the task of learning about other people’s trauma, and to not hate Laura Ingalls or her people. Indeed, the Author’s Note leads me to believe that Tougas is an unapologetic Ingalls fan--she recommends three biographies of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and alas, no books authored by Native people.

While reading Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life, and especially at the end, I thought over and over of this quote from The Lines We Cross by Randa Abdel-Fattah. This line is spoken by Mina, who came to Australia as an Afghan refugee, to Michael, a White character learning about his racial privilege (p. 219):
“You want me to make it easier for you to confront your privilege because God knows even antiracism has to be done in a way that makes the majority comfortable? Sorry... I don’t have time to babysit you through your enlightenment.”
Charlotte’s choice to read the essay or not--to include knowledge of the Trail of Tears in her consciousness, or wait until she’s ready to handle it--that choice is the essence of White privilege.

We White people are getting better at making a show of anti-racism. Our methods are becoming more sophisticated. We acknowledge the anti-racist argument, provide it lip service and limited space, before snatching back control of the narrative and recentering our own comfort. Read Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life as the next step, the next generation, the next wave of racism. Watch closely, especially if you’re White; racism is evolving before our very eyes.

Saturday, March 25, 2017

What happened to "A Second Perspective" at All The Wonders?

Eds. note, 3/30/17: Please see updates to this post, including Matthew Winner's explanation.

First, a brief overview of what happened to my "Second Perspective" post at the All the Wonders website (more on who they are, later):

  • On Wednesday (March 22, 2017), I reviewed The Secret Project by Jonah and Jeanette Winters.
  • On Thursday morning (March 23, 2017), my review was added (with my permission) to the All the Wonders page about that book, as "A Second Perspective."
  • On Thursday evening (March 23, 2017), my review was gone.

Now, the details. 


On March 22, I wrote my review of The Secret Project, loaded it to AICL, and posted a link to the review on Facebook and Twitter. Then I looked on Twitter to see if others had reviewed it. If someone I know has reviewed a book I've also reviewed, I'll generally ask them to take a look at my review. Donalyn Miller and Jillian Heise added links to my review to their reviews on Goodreads.

I saw that The Secret Project was featured at All the Wonders. I read their interview with Jonah Winters (the author), and agree with what he said about propaganda. I felt then (and still do) that some changes to the book would make it outstanding. I wanted to listen to the podcast and read the interview with the illustrator, but had other things to do at that moment. Because I know All the Wonders is widely read by teachers and librarians, I asked them if they could add my review so that they could use information I share when they teach or read the book.


They said yes. On Thursday morning, my review was on their site as "A Second Perspective." I went back to my review and added a link to their site (and a screen cap of their introduction to my review). They wrote:
Here at All the Wonders, we strive to represent diversity and inclusion in the books we share. Debbie Reese, co-founder of American Indians in Children's Literature drew our attention to a recent review of The Secret Project she wrote where she discusses concerns over how Native Americans were represented in the story and illustrations. Specifically, the depiction of the Los Alamos Ranch School as isolated from other inhabitants to the region -- which it was not -- and the use of the phrase "nobody knows they are there" in reference to the scientists working on the bomb, which marginalizes the presence of the Native people living there. 
The story told in The Secret Project through words and illustrations is powerful, but in order to understand and appreciate more fully the context in which the even happened, it is important for readers to be aware of the Native people in and of the surrounding area.
Then, I went back to All the Wonders to read the interview with the illustrator, but it was gone. A little bit later, the interview with the author was gone, too. Why were they gone?

On Thursday night, I had an email from Matthew saying they had made a difficult decision to remove my review.

That night on Twitter, Sam Bloom of Reading While White, asked Matthew what happened to it. Here's a screen cap of his question:


Matthew replied, saying that they value "reading and being challenged by that review, but ultimately decided as a team to support the conversation in other ways". Here's a screen cap of his reply:


Early Friday morning, I replied to Matthew to acknowledge what they had done and let him know that I was about to get in my car for a day-long road trip and didn't have time to write back at length about the decision.

Just before I got in my car, I saw that the author and illustrator interviews were back on the All the Wonders page.

As I write this post, it is Saturday morning. I'm reading through what happened yesterday on Twitter.

Kathleen Horning of the Cooperative Children's Book Center  asked Matthew for an example of "other ways." He replied, saying "Such as in a conversation on an open forum such as Twitter where all stakeholders can participate in real time." And, here's the screen capture of that:


In an email sent to me yesterday, Matthew suggested I contribute a post for All the Wonders, that consists of books I recommend. He also referenced a Twitter conversation. I haven't replied to him yet. I'm conflicted. If I say yes to his invitation, I'll be able to bring visibility to Native writers.

I'm not angry at Matthew, and I hope this blog post doesn't cause him to withdraw his invitation.

Here's what I think, and some back story...


In posting my review at their site, All the Wonders found themselves mired in the politics of children's literature. Did Jonah Winters demand that his interview be removed? Did Jeanette Winters demand that her interview be removed? Did their publisher make demands of the team at All the Wonders? Did they make threats?! I know--that sounds dramatic--but there's back story to all this that prompts me to use the word "threat."

The Secret Project is published by Simon and Schuster. As one of the Big Five, it is a powerful entity. Back on March 5, 2017, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled The 'Rock Star' Librarians Who Choose What Your Kids Read. That article is how I learned about All the Wonders and Matthew Winner. He's featured in it as one of the three men characterized as rock stars (the three strongly objected to being the focus of the article and to being characterized that way. Women had also been interviewed but were not included).

The article generated a lot of discussion. Allie Jane Bruce of Reading While White did a terrific post about it. She asked some pointed questions. Are these three librarians being used by publishers as a way to get free advertising for their books? Were/are they (inadvertently) functioning as marketers for publishers? Please read the comments to the post. Among them is one from Matthew Winner. He disagreed with her remarks about advertising and marketing. He also said that he wants to increase the diversity of the podcasts at All the Wonders. In my comment to Allie's post, I recommended he add Native writers. He and I started talking, via email, about possibilities and I think one will be there, fairly soon.

I also asked him, in an email, if he might add critical content to some of the pages they do at All the Wonders. He didn't say yes or no, but I believed (and still believe) that he and his team are very interested in being more diverse with what they're doing on their site. So... last week when I saw that All the Wonders had a new page up on The Secret Project, I decided to ask them to add a link to my review and was thrilled that they did. Then, as you know, they removed it.

So, what happened to "A Second Perspective" at All the Wonders?


Did Simon and Schuster put pressure on the All the Wonders team to remove my review? If Simon and Schuster gives All the Wonders books, did they threaten to withhold future books? If Simon and Schuster controls access to its authors and illustrators, did they threaten to withhold access to their authors and illustrators? Did they say "get rid of Debbie's review, or else"?

I don't know if the All the Wonders team was pressured to remove my review, and I'm not going to ask Matthew that question.

It seems to me that the team at All the Wonders was put into a difficult position. They want to offer critical content of books along with podcasts and interviews, but their effort to do so with my review didn't succeed.

I've got lot of questions. Do publishers wield that much power over sites like All the Wonders? If so, that's not good, at all, for anyone. If not, then.... what happened to my review? Right now, several people are wondering what happened.

Update (3/30/17) -- A Response from Matthew Winner


A few days after loading this post, I went back to School Library Journal to read "Rock Star Librarians" Article Hits Sour Note. Written by Addie Matteson and Matthew Winner, it addressed a major concern with the article in the Wall Street Journal that featured three male librarians. This paragraph stood out to me:
The fact that diverse voices weren’t heard, valued, or represented in the WSJ article made us look more closely at the people we look to as leaders, the authors and role models we invite to our schools, the books we choose to read, review, and purchase. We need to do more, and we need to be better. If we want our students to see themselves on our bookshelves and in our programming, we need to actively work toward that goal. How can we expect the world (or the Wall Street Journal) to see school libraries as places where diversity is honored and celebrated if we are not working to make them that way?

Winner's decision to use my review of The Secret Project was evidence of his wish to "do more" and "be better." But, with those words as context, his decision to delete it made the decision to use it in the first place even worse.

I shared that excerpt on Twitter yesterday morning (3/29/17), again asking why my review was taken down. Kate Messner, Laurie Halse Anderson, and Justine Larbaleister retweeted it and asked the question, too.

At 8:14 PM, Winner replied to Kate Messner and Laurie Halse Anderson, saying he would respond. Here's a screencap of his tweet to Laurie:



At 8:41 Winner submitted a response, using the blog's comment form. I saw it in this morning's email and am pasting it here:

Hi everyone. I want to apologize publicly here to anyone who was offended by our decision to include Debbie’s review of The Secret Project in our feature at All Wonders and then retract it later that day.
We feature one book each month in addition to our regular content, and the selected book is one that our team believes stands above the rest. We think of our features as an award from our team, and we honor the chosen book by compiling various forms of content that celebrate it. We even describe the feature to the artists involved as "a week-long celebration of your book." These words, we believe, enter us into a verbal agreement that we will shine a positive light on their work, and it is based upon this agreement that the publisher grants us permission to license their images, words, and behind-the-scenes content. I made a misstep, then, by surprising Jonah and Jeanette Winter and their publisher, Simon & Schuster, with a critique, and introducing an element of debate into the feature. After careful reconsideration of these factors, we decided to pull the post. 
I know now that this series of events confused and offended a number of individuals. I am sorry for that. We (myself along with the team) had the best intentions, which was to offer a “second perspective” post from Debbie, who saw something that we did not see in our reads through the book. We consider critically all of the books that we include on our site, and we welcome discussions about how they are serving readers, but our features in particular are not designed for that purpose. They are designed to give children multiple entry points into what we believe to be special books. 
Once we came to the decision to pull Debbie’s post, we immediately communicated to her via email that we would be removing her post for these reasons and gave her an open invitation to address American Indian representation in children’s books on our site or in the form of a Twitter chat. Though we are still waiting for an official response from Debbie, it is our sincere hope that she will choose to work with us in the future to raise awareness about misrepresentations of American Indians in children’s literature.
Our goal at All the Wonders is not to silence, but to raise the voices of authors, artists, bloggers, and critics in service of readers. I regret the way these events have unfolded, but I consider this an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and a renewal of our mission to build positive relationships with all of our colleagues. 
Sincerely,
Matthew C. WinnerAll The Wonders co-founder 


Matthew did, as he wrote above, email me to say they were removing my post. Specifically, he wrote:
 [We] dd not feel that the piece added to the focus of the feature and that the conversation it beckons would be better served in other contexts throughout the site. We felt that the topic begs for discussion, and that is not something that the feature is suited for or capable of.
That line was particularly ambiguous (to me). He went on to say that they wanted me to write about Native writers and be a guest on a Twitter chat they host.

That invitation is fine, but it is a far cry from what a Second Perspective on books can do for teachers and librarians. When they added my review as A Second Perspective, I thought of all the other books they had featured and that could use A Second Perspective. One, for example, is Laura Jimenez's perspective on Telgemeier's Ghosts. Frankly, I was excited at the possibilities.

Do I want to contribute a post about Native writers to All the Wonders? I'm not sure.

I still think that their decision not to proceed with A Second Perspective is a mistake. A week-long celebration of a book is a mistake if there are concerns about that book's representations of marginalized people.

Winner and the team at All the Wonders were right when they said this, to introduce my review as A Second Perspective at their site:
The story told in The Secret Project through words and illustrations is powerful, but in order to understand and appreciate more fully the context in which the even happened, it is important for readers to be aware of the Native people in and of the surrounding area.
Saying that, they recognized Pueblo children as readers. Indeed, they recognized all children who live in that area who know more about the history and cultures of the area than Jonah and Jeanette Winters told them in The Secret Project. 

As Winner's response says, their decision to add A Second Perspective surprised Jonah and Jeanette Winters, and Simon and Schuster, too, because of his verbal agreement to shine a positive light on their work. That, I believe, explains why their interviews disappeared from the site when A Second Perspective was published. Once that second perspective was removed, their interviews went back up.

Those two people and their publisher set the terms under which Matthew Winner and the team at All the Wonders will speak about their books.

That's not surprising, but Winner is a librarian by training and profession. From that position as a librarian, he is providing a huge service to teachers and librarians who read All the Wonders.

But is it a service to his profession? I think it is a service to publishers. With that as a fact, his words in the SLJ article ring hollow. Doing better doesn't mean just talking up the good. Books get better when we talk about the problems in them, too.

Update, March 31, 2017

Yesterday, Kate Messner asked Matthew Winner for a clarification:
To clarify...were you asked by S&S to remove the original images/words/content after you'd added Debbie's Second Perspective?
He replied saying:
S&S expressed their regret, but we as @_AllTheWonders maintain full autonomy over what we create and what we share on our site. 
and
S&S was very specific about saying they would not pressure us to take down the post. 

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Lane Smith's new picture book: There Is a TRIBE of KIDS (plus a response to Rosanne Parry)

Eds note, 2/17/17: Scroll down to see curated list of links to articles about Smith's book. 

_________

I love word play. Lane Smith's book is getting a lot of love for its word play, but I'm tagging his book as Not Recommended. It is a 2016 book, published by Roaring Book Press/Macmillan.

Here's the cover of his new book, There Is a Tribe of Kids. The blue creature to the left is meant to be a young mountain goat, or, a kid (that is the term for a baby goat). We follow the child on the right as we read There Is a TRIBE of KIDS. That child is a kid, too, of course, which tells us that Smith is doing some word play in the book. See the two sticks coming out of the child's head? See the stance the child is in? That child is playing at being a goat kid.


Note that two words in the book title are in capital letters. They go together. That's a pattern that Smith uses throughout the book, and as a former elementary school teacher, it is kind of detail that I'd love to point out to kids.

BUT.

Smith's error is using the word TRIBE on the final pages of the book, to refer to children who are playing, adorned in various ways with leaves. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Let's go back to the opening pages.

On the title page the child is with three kids (goats) as an adult goat looks down on them from atop a rock. On the next page, the three kids climb the rock, leaving the child alone. The child stands upright and walks away from the rock, discarding the horns.

Beneath that illustration are the words "There WAS a TRIBE of KIDS." The three kids the child was with are part of a tribe (tribe is another word for herd), but since they've left him behind, Smith uses the past tense (was).

Beneath that sentence is an illustration of the child looking across the page at a penguin. The child is shown in the same pose the penguin is in. On the next page the child is shown in the same pose as four penguins (see the illustration to the right). As we saw with the goats, the penguins leave (they go into the water and the child follows), and the text is "There was a COLONY of PENGUINS."

In the water, the child is in the midst of jellyfish. In a series of illustrations, we see the child's leaf shirt float up and then into a balloon shape, which are the shapes of jellyfish as they swim.

That's the pattern of the book. The child is with a group of some kind, and while with that group, the child's leaf clothing or body positioning emulates that group.

On some pages, the child is just shown with the group. On one page, the child sits atop a whale. A raven picks the child up off the whale's back and flies with other ravens; the raven opens its beak and for an instant the child is flying but then drops to the ground and lands on a pile of boulders. The child plays on the boulders (holding his body like one), falls headfirst into some flowering plants, and when the child is upright again, the child has leaf arms and leaf ears and a flower atop its head. The child finds elephants and then, those leaf ears are like elephant ears.

As we get to the end of the story, the child is near the ocean, which has a bed of clams. The child uses one as a bed. In the morning the child wakes, alone, abandons the leaf shirt and follows a trail of shells and finds "a TRIBE of KIDS" playing beneath and on the branches of a massive tree. There are 28 children. What are they playing? They've all got leaves on, in some way.

Here are the ones with a leaf/leaves on their heads. Coupled with the word TRIBE on that page, it looks to me like they're dressed up to play Indian. Remember the pattern of the book. The child we followed from one page to the next was (mostly) shown doing something to emulate something else.










But, writer Rosanne Parry disagrees with Sam, and with me, too, but she didn't reference me at her post, A Tribe of Book Reviewers.  My guess is that she thinks her blog post title is clever. It isn't. She thinks that Sam Bloom (see his review at Reading While White) should have
"been willing to look a little deeper, beyond just the immediate Oh no! we are insulting Native Americans again, as we have done so often in the past."
When I read that line in italics, I was incensed. She's being quite dismissive of criticism of stereotyping, bias, appropriation---all those things that white writers, including her, have done. A few years ago, I reviewed Parry's Written In Stone. There's a lot wrong with that book. She wrote to me privately to talk about my review, but I preferred the conversation to be public so that others could follow and learn from it. Many did. Parry did not. Indeed, Parry's resistance was remarkable. She was so sure that she was right to make up traditional Native stories, and right to make up petroglyphs and assign them meaning, and right to write that story because the Native kids she taught--she told us--wanted her to write a story about them. Sheesh! White savior to the rescue!

Parry had a lot more to say about Smith's There Is a Tribe of Kids...

She acknowledged that tribe is a loaded word, but says that she:
"didn't immediately make the leap to Native American tribes because there are no tribes in North America who dress in garments made of leaves. Plant fibers woven into cloth, yes. Dance costumes made of pale yellow grasses, yes. But broad-leafed green plans arranged around the body as a short cloak? No."
Are you rolling your eyes? Are you flipping out at her use of "costumes"? You should be. She likes to talk about the Native kids she taught in Washington. Does she think they wore costumes?! There's more. She read through the book and
"didn't see a single reference, even an oblique one, to a Native American tribe or any tribal activity of North America. No hunting, no fishing, no fires, no tomahawks, no archery, no totem poles, no teepees, no drums, no horses, no canoes."
Again: are you rolling your eyes? Or, maybe, grinding your teeth? Or laughing at how stupid this all sounds? Or---are you reading it and thinking she's making good points? All those reactions are possible, given the widespread ignorance out there about Native people! Some get it, while others are oblivious. Parry goes on, telling us the way the kids are playing is more like the Green Man,
"an ancient mythological figure associated with the Celtic tribes." 
Oh! The kids are playing Green Man. Not Indian! (I'm being sarcastic). Parry isn't done yet, though... She tells us that the children playing on those final pages are of different colored skin tones, making the book:
"one of the most racially inclusive books on our bookstore shelves this year. Not only that, it's a racially inclusive book that isn't about slavery or civil rights or westward expansion, which often cast Black and Native American characters as victims."
Oh, yay (again, I'm being sarcastic). Then she tells us that the kids are:
"arranging shells, playing ball, swinging, sliding, climbing, dancing, running, hiding, napping" 
and that none of those actions are
"a mockery of Native Americans. If they were wearing fringed buckskins or button blankets or powwow dance costumes or had painted faces or were brandishing bows and arrows, that would be an entirely different story."
Oh. I see. (More sarcasm from me; I can't not be sarcastic about her words, and this is the fourth or fifth time I'm reading them!) There's that use of costume again. From a white woman who professes love for the Native kids she taught. She tells us that what she sees in Smith's illustrations are depictions of how kids play, and asks
"Who are we to shame them by saying this is playing Indian?"
Shame. That word is getting used a lot in children's literature discussions last year and this one, too. Us Native and people of color are being mean, shaming writers and now--Parry tells us--the way that kids play.

Sigh. Yes, some of the kids are sliding. And some are playing ball, etc. But look at the illustrations I shared above. What are we to make of them? They're not active in any way. They're just there, wearing their leaf feathers, holding staffs, standing, sitting, jewelry dangling from neck/wrist/ears... What about them?

Parry offers workshops on how to get things right. If you're a writer, avoid her. I wish I could say she's clueless, but I think she is being deliberately obtuse. She'll lead you to think your problematic story of appropriation is ok. It won't be.

I acknowledge that I'm clearly incensed with her and I anticipate lot of people coming to her defense. Parry and others (as Sam Bloom noted, There Is a Tribe of Kids is getting starred reviews) don't see--and refuse to see--the problems in the book. That's where we are in 2016.

Update, Friday July 15, 2016

See my first post on Smith's book: Reading While White reviews Lane Smith's There Is a Tribe of Kids

Part of the contentious discussion is that tribe doesn't mean Native peoples. That is, of course, true. However, in the U.S., that's what the word generally invokes. Some evidence: In preparing this review, I did a search of children's books at Amazon and at Barnes and Noble, using "tribe" as the search term. The results make it clear that the word is coupled with Native peoples. I didn't include discussion of the word in this review but will discuss it in another post.

Update, Friday, Feb 17, 2017

From time to time I curate a set of links about a particular book or discussion. I'm doing that below, for There Is a Tribe of Kids. The links are arranged chronologically by date on which they were posted/published. If you know of ones I ought to add, please let me know. I will insert it below (as you'll see, I'm noting the date on which I add it to the list in parenthesis).

Sam Bloom's Reviewing While White: There Is a Tribe of Kids posted on July 8, 2016 (added to this list on July 21, 2016).

Debbie Reese's Reading While White reviews Lane Smith's THERE IS A TRIBE OF KIDS posted on July 9, 2016 (added to this list on July 21, 2016).

Debbie Reese's Lane Smith's new picture book: THERE IS A TRIBE OF KIDS (plus a response to Rosanne Parry) posted on July 14, 2016 (added to this list on July 21, 2016).

Roxanne Feldman's A Tribe of Kindred Souls: A Closer Look at a Double Spread in Lane Smith's THERE IS A TRIBE OF KIDS posted on July 17, 2016 (added to this list on July 21, 2016).

Roger Sutton's Tribal Trials posted on July 18, 2016 (added to this list on July 21, 2016).

Elizabeth Bird's There Is a Tribe of Kids: The Current Debate posted on July 19, 2016 (added to this list on July 21, 2016).