Misrepresentation in books

I agree that Native Americans are probably the group that is the most overlooked and misrepresented out of minority groups. When in class we discussed the issue about mascots, and how they misrepresent groups. I began to think about literature, and how misrepresented Indians are in it. Before my major now I was an early childhood major. I was in a childhood literature class, and one day we spent the day discussing banned books. One thing I remember discussing was bands about Native American works. How different groups are falsely represented in books. How certain groups are upset and appalled by how American Indians have been portrayed in books. So I decided to look into it just a little bit more, and was surprised by what I found. I came across a study/survey done by Elizabeth Birth. Then I found criticism about the books on her list.

Elizabeth Bird got top 10 lists of books from numerous people, many from teachers and students. She than posted a list of the top 100 children's books. I found on a blog where a women named Debbie Reese took certain books that had negative comments about Native American’s and posted some of those comments. Here are some examples: Number 94, which is a “Swallows and Amazons” by Arthur Ransom “Roger is "keeping a sharp lookout lest he should be shot by a savage with a poisoned arrow from behind a tree." Number 13 was “Bridge to Terabithia” by Katherine Paterson “There they came upon a display case holding a miniature scene of Indians disguised in buffalo skins scaring a herd of buffalo into stampeding over a cliff to their death with more Indians waiting below to butcher and skin them” Number 17 was “Maniac Magee” by Jerry Spinelli “what he imagines: "the blacks sweeping across Hector one steaming summer night; torches, chains, blades, guns, war cries; marauding, looking, overrunning the West End; climbing in through smashed windows, doors, looking for whites, bloodthirsty for whites, like Indians in the old days, Indians on a raid... That's what they are, Giant John nodded thoughtfully, ‘today's Indians.’” Number 25 is “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott "Laurie opened the parlor door and popped his head in very quietly. He might just as well have turned a somersault and uttered an Indian war whoop, for his face was so full of suppressed excitement and his voice so treacherously joyful that everyone jumped up…” Number 85 is “On the Banks of Plum Creek” by Laura Ingalls Wilder. "I wish I was an Indian and never had to wear clothes!" Course, Ma chides her for saying that, especially for saying it "on Sunday!"

Although these all might not be extremely popular books, they were popular enough to make it on the list. Even if only a handful of children read books that have comments like this in them, what is that teaching them? These were only a handful of the wrongful comments, there are many more. I realized before looking into this, that Native Americans were misrepresented in pieces of literature, but I did not realize how bad it was. Many of these books are older books, but it is the fact that they are still being read today that is the problem.

I also found another blog website, that posted images that appear in children books: http://imagesofindiansinchildrensbooks.blogspot.com/

Cassandra Paternosh Post #7