Re: bad historical fiction

[Herb Wilburn <hwilburn@SHENTEL.NET>]

This is long, but please work through it. I really want to speak to this
thread. One of our primary responsibilities as librarians is to encourage
our readers/students to check for authority and validity; and as important,
we must check for even-handedness. While we're looking at the site posted
(http://www.oyate.org/books-to-avoid/courage.html) for bad historical
fiction, let's not take everything here without question.

I have a real problem with the way the web authors take The Courage of Sarah
Noble to task. For instance, listing the following passage as if it were
terrible:

>   "'The Indians will eat you," Lemuel said and smacked his lips loudly.
'They will chop off your head,'
>   little Robert added, with a wide innocent smile...'They will skin you
alive...' That was Lemuel."

Hey, little kids say things like that to scare others. I suspect if Lemuel
thought Sarah was afraid of frogs, he would have told her stories of 6 ft,
girl eating frogs.

>   The web author again complains:
>   "The forest is always "The Wilderness." The trees are "angry dark trees"
that "seemed to stand in their path...trees dark             >and fearful,
trees crowding against each other, trees on and on, more trees and more
trees. Behind the trees there were
>men moving...were they Indians?"

I think this may be very good writing! To a little girl, and she is a little
girl, the fact that she's white should not deny her to our sympathy, it
would be scary. And, in fact, this area of the country was in the time
period "wilderness." If our web author gets out in the outdoors much, they
would know that even in our century, mother nature can be very scary and
very dangerous, even to adults.

>   The web author complains:
>"And it is in the Native people that the heart of the menace and
strangeness lies. Although in fact nothing ever endangers
>this child, neither the animals nor the people, and there is never any need
for all this courage, the author carries it to the
>very end. Having – finally – gotten it, that "these Indians are our
friends," Sarah tells her doll, "...and they will tell us if the
>Indians from the north are coming...Keep up your courage, Arabella, keep up
your courage." Although "Tall John" has
>become a friend, and Sarah has played many times with his children, when it
comes time for her to stay with them, there is
>fear. John Noble worries, "Am I doing right to leave her?" Sarah was not
saying anything, but her mind...was making
>pictures, trees...trees...dark trees...narrow paths through the
forest...wolves...bears. Suppose her father never came back
>and she had to live with the Indians all her life? "

Tell me that these reactions on the part of Sarah and her father are not
normal reactions. I suspect if a Native American were to be forced to leave
their child with European settlers for a time period, they would have the
same feelings.

>   The web author complains:
>"As for the people themselves, we never see how they live. Although there
are many children, there are no adults beyond
>"Tall John" and his wife. Where are the families, the band, the encampment,
or village? The people have no nation, the are
>just "the Indians." From this book, one would never know that they had a
way of life, societal structure, and economy. In
> the illustrations, there are two distant views of one dwelling only, the
"Indian house," but we never see inside. Much is
>made of Native names: "There is a tall Indian who...will help me. I cannot
say his name, so I will call him "Tall John." Sarah
>"could not say the long, long names of the children, so she called the boy
Small John and the girl Mary." And on her first
>night in their home, she is faced with a dilemma: "Now she really had to
stop and think. Was it right to pray for Indians? Did
>the Lord take care of Indians?""

>"Dalgliesh called her book a "story of faith and courage and friendship."
Possibly that was her intent. Friendship does not
>call people out of their names just because they are unfamiliar. Friendship
does not doubt the safety of a child with people
>who have shown you nothing but kindness. Friendship does not call a woman
"squaw." Friendship does not wonder if people
>are human enough to pray for. If words and pictures show people only as
creatures of the wild, that is how children will
>think of them, no matter how much you speak of friendship. If there is
something fearful about them, even after months of
>relationship, if you say their names are impossible, and slap other names
on them – any old ones will do – and nobody
>objects, if you show nothing of their lives, then they have no identity
that children can understand, no reality as human
>beings."

Please, the web/author is asking the book to be something it was never
intended to be, a complete social study of Native American culture. It's a
60 to 80 page children's book that tells a great story that kids can relate
to, being in a strange place and being afraid. All of the complaints about
Sarah not seeing the Native Americans as equals really miss the point of the
book. Sarah does come to accept her hosts and care for them. Of course she
misses her father and has frightening moments, that's the way life was and
is.

>   The web author finishes with:
>"The usual defense for a book of this nature, is that we must understand it
as a product of its time. This is true. The
>Courage of Sarah Noble was published in 1954, and it is very much a product
of is time – a time that has come and gone. In a
>world where our divisiveness threatens the very existence of all human
beings, of all life, there is no room, and no time, for
>such a story. I would give a child no book, rather than this nasty little
thing – and I'm damn sure I don't want my kids
>reading it."

It's a shame she feels that way. It may be her lack of tolerance and
understanding of others, coupled with her Native-centric viewpoint that will
encourage more separation in our culture. This is my point. It may not be a
perfect book, but it does accomplish what the author set out to do; tell a
story of a brave little girl learning about trust and friendship. The
settlers were not perfect, but revisionist native history is just as bad.
Native American tribes were not perfect society. They had their problems as
well. If one is teaching historical fiction, then the author's context for
writing that fiction is just as important to the study.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=
All postings to LM_NET are protected under copyright law.
To quit LM_NET (or set-reset NOMAIL or DIGEST, etc.) send email to:
listserv@listserv.syr.edu   In the message write EITHER:
1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL or 3) SET LM_NET DIGEST
4) SET LM_NET MAIL  * Please allow for confirmation from Listserv.
For LM_NET Help see: http://ericir.syr.edu/lm_net/
Archives: http://askeric.org/Virtual/Listserv_Archives/LM_NET.shtml
 See also EL-Announce for announcements from library media vendors:
    http://www.mindspring.com/~el-announce/
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=