At 09:22 AM 4/5/2005, Tamara Jordan wrote:
>Thanks so much for all the responses to my request for historical fiction
>titles. The overwhelming suggestion was the Dear America series. I was
>delighted to find a few of these in our collection. Kristin sent me two
>wonderful bibliographies for historical fiction titles. Thanks again to
>everyone for your help.
I am glad to see that Tamara's list includes books by Erdrich and Dorris,
but must issue a strong caution about Rinaldi's Dear America book, MY HEART
IS ON THE GROUND. It has been soundly critiqued as highly problematic. The
full critique is at the Oyate website: http://www.oyate.org, under the
"Books to Avoid" category.
The critique, in different versions, was published in several places,
including Multicultural Review, Multicultural education, and Rethinking
Schools. I am one of the women who worked on that critique. The discussion
of it led to a much greater awareness of the ways that Native American
culture, history, etc. is presented in children's books. Scholastic would
not pull the book, but did not submit it to the Kennedy Center, who was
turning several of the Dear America stories into stage productions.
Many of the Dear America stories are excellent, but Rinaldi's contribution
is far from accurate. It has basic errors in it, such as getting Sitting
Bull's tribe wrong, but it also vastly misrepresents the boarding school
experiences of Native Americans in the 1880s.
Debbie Reese
Debbie A. Reese, (Nambé Pueblo)
Assistant Professor, American Indian Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1206 West Nevada
Urbana, IL 61801
TEL 217.265.9870
FAX 217.265.9880
Email: debreese@uiuc.edu
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