"Wild Indian" stereotype

Yesterday at the doctor's office, flipping thru magazines on the table, I was surprised to see a full page Tylenol ad on the back page o...

Shirley Sterling's MY NAME IS SEEPEETZA

A reader told me about an article by Shirley Sterling, author of one of the boarding school books I wrote about yesterday. The article is a ...

American Indian Boarding Schools - continued Native singer/songwriter Arigon Starr heard about the critique of Rinaldi's book and wrote ...

American Indian Boarding Schools

I think that when most people hear "boarding school," they think of elite private schools, and perhaps they think of Hogwarts (Har...

Writing BY American Indians that isn't ABOUT American Indians In my work, I search for books and stories about American Indians tha...

More Board Books

There are four additional board books by Beverly Blacksheep! They are Baby Learns about Weather , Baby Learns about Time , Baby Learns abou...

The 1700's: Writings about Indians

I spent the last three days studying materials in the Yale libraries. It is fascinating to do this sort of research. There is so much here...

Board Books

In some of my posts, I talked about words like "papoose" that some (incorrectly) think are "Indian" words that all India...

"Indian" words: Teaching about Indians, Part II In children's books (and TV, movies, etc.) there are many words that are used ...

Finding Books by Tribal Name A reader asked if there is a resource that lists recommended books by tribal nation. I don't know of such a...

Marcie Rendon's POW WOW SUMMER

Back in the mid 90s I was reviewing for children's lit review journals. I was sent LOTS of books to review. Most were pretty dismal, but...

"Happy Hunting Ground"

In the landscape of words and phrases that are somehow associated with American Indians is "Happy Hunting Ground." I spent a half ...

A reader asked about CADDIE WOODLAWN....

When my daughter was in 3rd grade (eight years ago), one evening while doing reading homework, she said "Mom, I don't get it....

All-Time Best Selling Paperbacks

In December of 2001, Publisher's Weekly published a list of all-time best selling paperbacks. The list, compiled by Debbie Turvey, list...

Cheryl Savageau's MUSKRAT WILL BE SWIMMING

One area of my research is the analysis of American Indian folktales that are marketed as picture books for children. I submitted an article...

Teaching about Indians, Part I

I often get private emails from teachers asking about best practice in terms of teaching about American Indians. Over a series of blog posts...

Joy Harjo's THE GOOD LUCK CAT

In my "links" I include links to Cynthia Leitich Smith's blog and her website. She's got some terrific books ( Jingle Danc...

In "comments" to my previous post, Opal noted that American Indians get short shrift in history classes, in part due to state stan...

Note on page design: When I started this blog, I used white text on black background because web-design books said that is easier on the eye...

Exciting news! The Before Columbus Foundation has selected A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children to receive a 2006 Am...