Posted on by TracyC

The Light in the Forest

LightInTheForestThe Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter, 1953.

Although this book was adapted into a live-action Disney movie in 1958, this is not a story that I would recommend for young children because of the level of violence.  I think I was in elementary school, about 10 or 11 years old, when I read it as a kid, but I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone that young anymore.  This book is bound to be controversial, but read to the end, where I discuss my reaction to it.

This story takes place in 18th century Colonial America, specifically in Pennsylvania.  Eleven years before the story begins, four-year-old John Butler was abducted by Lenape Indians and adopted by a member of the tribe as a replacement for a Lenape boy who had died.  His new “father” names him True Son and treats him as his son.  John/True Son comes to feel that his Lenape father is his true father, although he is aware that he had another father before.  Years later, in 1764, fifteen-year-old John/True Son remembers very little about his life among white people and now considers himself Lenape.  The Lenape recognize him as a full member of the tribe as well, but a recent treaty requires them to return all white people they have taken captive, including True Son.

The tribe reluctantly hands True Son over to white soldiers to be returned to his birth family, although True Son resists, even attempting to kill himself at one point to prevent it.  However, the suicide attempt is thwarted, and True Son is brought to Fort Pitt, where he is reunited with his birth father, Harry Butler.

Harry Butler takes John/True Son home to the rest of the family, but True Son refuses to acknowledge them as his family.  He pretends like he can’t understand English anymore and continues dressing like a Lenape.  The one member of the family he bonds with is his younger brother, Gordie, whom he had never met before.  Gordie is young and has no particular prejudice against Native Americans.  He finds the things that True Son does fascinating.  (The Disney film cut out the character of Gordie in favor of giving John/True Son a love interest, but I think that is a mistake because I think that the relationship between John and Gordie and how John/True Son views young children is central to the true theme of the story.  Read on.)

The family member that True Son really hates is his Uncle Wilse, who is known to have participated in a massacre against Native Americans.  Wilse thinks that John/True Son has been brain-washed by the Lenape and doesn’t really trust him.  When Wilse tells True Son that the Lenape have taken the scalps of children as well as adults, True Son denies it. The two of them argue, and Wilse slaps him.

True Son pines for his Lenape family, and when he learns that a couple of Lenape have been asking about him in the area, he manages to meet with them in secret.  One of them turns out to be Half Arrow, True Son’s cousin among the Lenape.  When Half Arrow tells him that friends of Wilse have killed a friend of theirs named Little Crane, the boys attack Wilse and scalp him in revenge.  (Not killing him, just scalping him.  It’s disgusting, but possible.  In the Disney movie, this scene is changed to a fist fight.)

True Son returns to the Lenape tribe with Half Arrow, and the tribe furthers their revenge for Little Crane’s death with a raid on a white village.  However, John/True Son is horrified when he sees the scalps of children as well as adults after the raid, proving that members of his tribe have killed innocent children and that Wilse was correct about that much.

When his tribe attempts to get True Son, posing as an ordinary white boy, to lure an unsuspecting group of white settlers into another attack, John/True Son must decide who he really is and what he really stands for.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction and Spoilers

In the end, John/True Son decides to alert the settlers to the imminent attack and warn them away because he sees children among them (in particular, a little boy who reminds him of Gordie, which is why that character is so important to the story) and can’t stand to see them killed.  His decision results in his banishment from the Lenape tribe.  At first, they were going to kill him for his disloyalty, but his adoptive father convinces them to spare his life, although he warns True Son that if members of the tribe see him again, they will consider him an enemy, so he can never become a part of their society again.  From this point on, John/True Son is on his own, and his fate lies in his hands alone.

Modern readers may be repulsed at the discussion of scalping (I know I was), and I’ve also heard arguments about whether the practice was more a Native American thing or one more often practiced by white people against Native Americans. Both sides do this in the story, but there are debates about where exactly the practice started.  My thought is that some things are just so disgusting that I can resent anyone who does them, regardless of who started it, but that’s neither here nor there.  Before anyone goes too far in that direction, I’d like to point out that we shouldn’t make the same mistake that most of the characters in the book do: overlooking the more immediate issue, which is True Son himself.

Throughout the story, John/True Son is a victim in more ways than one.  Because of his abduction at a young age, he is not only stuck in a personal identity crisis and a clash of cultures but has become a pawn in a power struggle between two societies that have each committed atrocities against the other.  In the beginning, he understands the most that the Lenape have been victimized by white people.  He comes to despise the white culture into which he was born and empathizes with the Lenapes’ attempts to strike back at the white people. Some of this might be a kind of Stockholm Syndrome (a term I didn’t know when I first read this book), but he is correct that men like his Uncle Wilse have committed great atrocities, and he wants no part of them.  However, against his wishes, he is thrust back into the culture he came from and into the middle of the conflict as a bargaining chip in a treaty.

After his time among his white family, he begins to see the conflict from both sides and to realize that not all white people are guilty of atrocities and deserve to be punished.  At the same time, True Son is forced to acknowledge that people close to him on both sides of the conflict have each done terrible things.  In the end, his sympathy is particularly for the innocent children who, like he was as a young child, have been brought into this cycle of hate, revenge, and killing without even their knowledge, having done nothing to deserve it.

We’re not quite sure what John/True Son’s life is going to be after the end of the story.  He has been rejected by the society he knows best, where he once thought he belonged, but whether his birth family and society will accept him back after what he’s done (the scalping of his uncle) is uncertain.  There is one thing that we do know: True Son has become his own man.  In a moment where he could simply have done what others asked, what they expected him to do, he made a difficult decision to stand up for what he really believed in, the protection of the innocent, regardless of their race, knowing even as he did so that there would be dire consequences for him personally.

We hope that John Butler/True Son manages to find some acceptance somewhere (probably among white society, which is hinted at the end of the book, but also probably on the fringe of it) and settle down to a more peaceful life, but we know that because of his troubled past, it isn’t going to be easy.  I would say that the overall message of the story is for people to consider the children and the generations to come and the impact that their decisions and their quarrels will have on their future and the kind of world the young people will grow up in.  John/True Son understands more about the horrors of fighting than either of the two sides involved, and he wants better for the younger children he finds at his mercy.

When you read other reviews of this book, you’ll see that there is some lingering resentment from people who were forced to read it in school.  It is a popular book for teachers to assign students to read around the middle school level (around age 12 to 14, roughly), and I have to admit that I often resented being forced to read depressing books in school myself.  This isn’t a happy story, but it is memorable and thought-provoking, and now that I’m an adult, what I remember best about the story is how John/True son feels about younger children and how he accepts the role of protecting them.

This story is based somewhat on real-life stories of abducted children from the same time period who also found themselves pawns in the struggles around them and felt conflicted when they once again came into contact with their birth families.  There are other books written on this topic, and the author of this one also wrote a book about a girl captive called A Country of Strangers.

Posted on by TracyC

The Desert is Theirs

The Desert is Theirs by Byrd Baylor, illustrated by Peter Parnall, 1975.

The story in the book is written in a kind of poetical form, describing what life in the desert is like.  It talks about the kinds of animals that live in the desert and how the plants sometimes have to go without water for months because it doesn’t rain much.

It also describes the Desert People, the Papago Indians (Tohono O’odham – Which literally translates as “Desert People”).  Even though the desert is a harsh environment, the people who have lived there for generations think of it as home and like living there.

The book continues with a Native American creation myth that describes how the Earthmaker made a little plot of dirt and greasewood grew in it – the beginning of the desert.  Then, Coyote scattered seeds to grow cactus, and the Spider People sewed the earth and sky together.  In the creation story, other animals help to form the desert, which earns the respect of the Papago.  The Desert People recognize that they have to share the land with the animals as well as each other.

While the desert can be harsh, it isn’t barren.  In the desert, there are still plants to eat and use as medicine.  People also use grasses for weaving baskets and the soil itself for building homes.

People also learn patience in the desert.  It can take a long time for it rain.  Plants sometimes have to wait for years in order to bloom.  Animals wait for the coolness of night to come out.  People plant their crops very carefully.  But, even though they often have to wait, good things are worth waiting for.

I remember teachers reading this book to us in early elementary school because I grew up in Arizona.  It is a Caldecott Honor Book.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Mystery in Arizona

Trixie Belden

TBMysteryArizona

#6 The Mystery in Arizona by Julie Campbell, 1958.

TBMysteryArizonaRanchDi’s Uncle Monty (the real one, not the fake from previously in the series) has invited her and the other Bob-Whites to spend Christmas at his dude ranch near Tucson, Arizona. At first, Trixie is worried that she won’t be allowed to go with the others because her grades in school are bad and she needs to study. However, her parents finally agree to allow her to go when the boys offer to tutor her over the holidays, and Trixie can get information that she needs on Navajo Indians for her theme. It won’t be easy, though.

From the very start of their visit, problems plague the ranch, and it seems as though everyone has a secret. Most of the members of the Orlando family, who usually take care of cooking, cleaning, and other tasks on the ranch, have mysteriously disappeared, except for Maria and her young son. Maria refuses to say where the others are, but the little boy is unhappy that he couldn’t go with the rest of his family and makes strange comments about skeletons and other frightening things. Also, Rosita, a Navajo girl working as a maid at the ranch, is deeply unhappy and in need of money for reasons that she doesn’t want to explain.

Meanwhile, there is a trio of lonely and unhappy guests in need of cheering up. In an effort to help, the Bob-Whites volunteer to take over the Orlandos’ chores to keep the ranch running during the holidays. As Trixie gets drawn further into the mysteries plaguing the ranch, she finds it difficult to balance her work and her studies. Trixie worries that this might turn out to be a terrible way to spend Christmas, but with some help from the Bob-Whites, things might work out even better than anyone hoped.

One of the things that they discover is that the Orlando family is celebrating a family tradition similar to Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead, similar to All Souls Day and Halloween) but their family celebrates it at a different time of year than is customary because they want their celebration to coincide with the birthday of one of their ancestors.  They left without explaining because they were worried that no one would understand their traditions or approve of them.  Maria Orlando did not go right away because she was worried about leaving her job, but when her son tries to run away and join the rest of the family, she decides that it isn’t fair to keep him away from the family celebration.  After making sure that the Bob-Whites can handle the chores on the ranch, she takes her son to join the others in Mexico.

The three unhappy guests, Jane Brown, Mr. Wellington, and Mrs. Sherman, also have their problems solved.  Jane learns to get over her shyness and enjoy herself.  Mr. Wellington’s children, who had decided at the last minute to spend the holidays with friends, change their minds and come to spend Christmas with their father instead, cheering him up.  After Maria leaves, Mrs. Sherman cooks Christmas dinner for everyone, allowing her to once again do the work she loved when she and her late husband ran a restaurant.  Rosita’s secret is that she feels responsible for an accident that her father suffered when he was working with some  more modern tools that she gave him for his silversmithing work.  She took a job at the ranch to get some money for his medical treatment, but she is worried that she cannot earn all the money she needs during the holidays so that she can return to school.  She sold some of her silver jewelry to Mrs. Sherman, but she refused to take more than $100 dollars for it, although Mrs. Sherman would gladly have given her all the money that she needed.  Rosita is too proud to ask for or accept help from others.  The Bob-Whites solve her problem by giving her the money that they earned working at the ranch as a Christmas present.  In spite of all these distractions, Trixie manages to improve her math and get enough information for her theme on Navajos from Rosita.

This is the last Trixie Belden book written by Julie Campbell, the original author of the series.  From this point on, the series continues with other authors.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Unbreakable Code

UnbreakableCode

The Unbreakable Code by Sara Hoagland Hunter, illustrated by Julia Miner, 1996.

A young boy, John, is upset because his mother has recently remarried, to a man from Minnesota.  Now, John is faced with the prospect of moving to Minnesota, and he doesn’t want to go.  He would much rather stay with his grandfather on his farm on the Navajo Reservation.  His grandfather points out that he’ll return in the summer, but that hardly seems good enough.  Then, his grandfather tells him that he’ll be okay because “You have an unbreakable code.”

UnbreakableCodeJohnGrandfather

John asks what his grandfather means by that, and he says that the Navajo language is the unbreakable code.  John worries that he’ll forget how to speak Navajo, but his grandfather says that he never did even though he had to attend a government boarding school at a young age and that the language saved his life during World War II.  John’s grandfather was a code talker.

John’s grandfather tells John the story of how he became a Code Talker, starting with when he was at boarding school.  The purpose of the government “Indian Schools” was to assimilate Native Americans into white American culture.  They were known for forcing their students to abandon traditional clothing, cut their hair, take English names, and speak only English.  John’s grandfather describes having to chew on soap whenever he was caught speaking Navajo.  He was only allowed to return home during the summer to help his family with their sheep and crops.

UnbreakableCodeBoardingSchool

Then, when he was in his teens, during World War II, he heard an announcement on the radio that the Marines were looking for young Navajo men who could speak both English and Navajo.  Seeing it has a chance to escape, he ran away from school and enlisted.  After life at a harsh boarding school, the military marches and drills were no problem, and all of the Navajos already had wilderness survival skills.

After they had completed basic training, they were told that they were needed for a secret mission in the Pacific.  The Japanese had intercepted American radio transmissions and broken the codes they were using.   The Marines wanted Navajo speakers because the language was almost unknown outside of the United States, not many non-Navajos had ever learned it, and at that point in its history, the language had not been recorded in writing, so there was no way that the Japanese could research it and learn it.  The Marines and code talkers developed a system of code words in Navajo and military terms to use, so it wasn’t as simple as just speaking the language plainly.  The system was highly effective.

UnbreakableCodeTalker

John’s grandfather goes on to tell John about how bloody the war was and how his life was constantly at risk.  Once, another American soldier even mistook him for a Japanese spy because he didn’t know what language he was speaking.  Fortunately, one of his friends intervened and saved his life.

UnbreakableCodeWar

The code was never broken during the war, and John’s grandfather eventually made it home safely.  However, the code talkers were not hailed as heroes because, for many years, the government wanted to keep the code a secret.  No one was allowed to talk about it.  John’s grandfather was glad to return to a peaceful life on his farm.

UnbreakableCodeReturnHome

His grandfather’s story gives John the courage that he needs to face moving to a new place.  After all, his grandfather had been to far more frightening places and faced them with courage.  Knowing his family’s history gives John a new sense of his own identity and the knowledge that his identity and language will remain with him wherever he goes.

This book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Additional Information

Even though this is a picture book, it isn’t really a book for very young children.  There are descriptions of the blood and violence of the war that would be more appropriate for older children.  There is a brief note from the author at the beginning of the book that explains a little about World War II and code talkers, and at the end of the book, there are charts that demonstrate how the code worked.  This book is an a good way to introduce students to the topic of code talkers if they have never heard of them before.

UnbreakableCodeTable1
UnbreakableCodeTable2

In modern times, there is a written form for the Navajo language, and since I grew up in Arizona, the colleges I attended had classes in Navajo for those who wanted to study the language.  I used to see the books for the classes in the school book stores, although I never studied Navajo myself.  I met one of the code talkers once when he came to speak at our college.  I believe that there are a few who are still alive at the time of this writing.

Posted on by TracyC

Monster Slayer

MonsterSlayer

Monster Slayer retold by Vee Browne, illustrated by Baje Whitethorne, 1991.

This is a retelling of a Navajo folktale.  An Editor’s Note at the beginning of the book explains a little about the original legend.  It is actually part of a much longer story.  The book only focuses on the Walking Giant part.  The Walking Giant threatened the villages of the Anasazi.  The author and illustrator of this book are both Navajo.

Changing Woman, who created both humans and monsters, had twin sons, but they did not know who their father was until they were twelve years old, when their mother told them that their father was the Sun.

MonsterSlayerAnasaziVillage

The twins went to see their father, but they were returned to Earth to help their people to fight the monsters which plagued the land.  The monsters prevented the Anasazi from planting their crops, and people were starving.  The people appealed to Changing Woman and her sons for help.  The twins’ father gave them his lightning arrows to use in the fight.

MonsterSlayerVillagers

Hearing the sound of thundering footsteps, Changing Woman told her sons that it was the sound of the Walking Giant.  The twins took their armor, sacred magic feathers, and lightning arrows and set out to find the giant.  Eventually, they found him by a lake.  The twins hid behind a rock, but the giant could smell them.

MonsterSlayerMagicFeathers

As the fight began, the twins let the giant shoot the first arrow at them because their father told them to, since Walking Giant was older that they were.  However, their magic feathers helped them to evade the giant’s boomerang.  Then, one of the twins used a lightning arrow to finish off the Walking Giant.  To commemorate their victory, Changing Woman named this twin Monster Slayer.  (The other boy was already named Child Born of Water.)

MonsterSlayerGiant

This story is interesting but felt a little disjointed to me. That may be because it is a shortened version of the legend.  I wish that the beginning note explained a little more about the context of the story.  This book won the Best Juvenile Book Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Courage of Sarah Noble

SarahNoble

The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh, 1954.

SarahNobleCookingIn 1707, a man living in Massachusetts named John Noble bought some land in Connecticut which had recently been purchased from a tribe of Indians (Native Americans) living nearby.  He planned to move his family there and start a new homestead, but with his children so young and the baby somewhat sickly, it was decided that he would travel to the new land ahead of his family and start building a new house there.  The only family member to accompany him was his eight-year-old daughter, Sarah, who came along to cook for him.  Before they leave home, Sarah’s mother tells her to “Keep up your courage,” something which Sarah repeats to herself from time to time.

SarahNobleFamilyOn the way to their new property, Sarah and her father have to camp out in the wilderness, although they do manage to stay one night with a family called Robinson.  The Robinson boys tease Sarah, saying that where she’s going, the Indians will probably chop off her head and eat her or do other horrible things.  Their sister tells Sarah not to worry because her brothers just like to tease.  Sarah’s father and Mistress Robinson also reassure her that the Indians in the area are friendly and that they sold their land knowing that new people would come there.

The Robinsons make Sarah uncomfortable.  Sarah later says to her father that there doesn’t seem to be love in the Robinson house. Her father agrees with the observation and says that the Robinsons should learn to watch their words and teach their children to do the same, adding “there are people in this world who do not help others along the way, Sarah, while there are those who do. In our home all will be treated with kindness-always, Sarah. The Indians, too, and they will not harm us.”  Although the Robinsons allowed the Nobles to stay the night in their house, they didn’t exactly make them feel welcome, and both of them realize that the things the boys were saying and their rough manner were clues to the Robinsons’ real attitudes and the kinds of things the parents talk about when no one else is around.

SarahNobleReadingWhen Sarah and her father reach the land that is to be their new home, they take refuge in a hollow place in a hillside, and John begins building their new house.  However, Sarah is still very nervous and lonely.  Then, while Sarah sits, reading the Bible, some curious Indian children from the nearby tribe come to see her.  She reads a Bible story aloud to them, and they listen, but she when she finishes the story, she can tell that they didn’t understand what she was saying.  Sarah can’t understand them, either, when they try to talk to her.  She gets impatient and snaps at them for not knowing English, and they run away from her.  Sarah is sorry about that because she realizes that she shouldn’t have been so irritable, and even if they couldn’t talk to each other, it was still nice to have people around.

Fortunately, the Indian children come back to see her again, and they become friends.  She tries to teach them English, but they don’t make much progress at first.  Even without being able to talk to each other, though, they can still do things like picking berries together.

SarahNobleNativeAmericanChildren

Sarah’s father also becomes friends with an Indian he nicknames “Tall John” because he can’t figure out how to pronounce his real name.  John and Tall John trade with each other, and John allows Sarah to visit Tall John’s home to play with his children.

When John finishes building the house and it is time for him to go and fetch the rest of their family, he decides that it would be better for Sarah not to make the long journey again, so he leaves her in the care of Tall John and his family.

SarahNobleStaysBehind

At first, Sarah is a little worried about living with the Indians.  Being friends and visiting during the day is one thing, but what would it be like to actually live with them?  Although Sarah likes her Indian friends, it’s obvious that the stories that she’s heard all her life about “savage” Indians bother her, and she still has some prejudices and misconceptions to overcome.  There are also the worries that often accompany children who are staying with someone other than their parents: what if something bad happens, her father never comes back, and she never sees her family again?  Sarah worries that, even though the tribe that lives nearby is nice, there are other Indians who aren’t, and some of them might attack while her father is away.

Fortunately, things go well during Sarah’s time with the Indians.  She finds some of their habits strange, and she notices that Tall John’s children (nicknamed “Small John” and “Mary”) find some of her habits strange, like the clothes she wears and the way she prays at night.  Tall John’s family gives Sarah some deerskin clothing, like they wear, and some moccasins, which she finds surprisingly comfortable.  There is a scare about a possible attack, but that passes without incident, and Sarah ends up enjoying her time with her Indian friends, playing games and participating in chores with them.  Tall John and his wife treat Sarah like one of their own children.

When it’s time for her to rejoin her family, Sarah changes back to her old clothes, but they no longer seem as comfortable to her, and she decides to keep wearing the moccasins.  A little of her Indian friends has rubbed off on her, and she is a different person because of her experiences.  Sarah’s mother expresses some concern about her daughter having lived with “savages” (her word), but Sarah is quick to defend them, saying that they aren’t savages and that they’re friends.  Her father agrees that Tall John and his family are good people who took good care of Sarah.

This book is a Newbery Honor Book.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

Throughout the story, various characters have obvious prejudices about American Indians, and the language used isn’t what we would use today (ex. “Indians” instead of “Native Americans” and nobody says “squaw” anymore (or shouldn’t – white people used to think it simply meant “woman” but it has other connotations as well, better to just say “woman” when that’s what you mean)), but these are fitting with the time period when the story takes place.  The overall attitude of the story, especially Sarah’s evolving attitudes toward her new Native American friends, is good.  Sarah begins by being frightened because of all of the scary things people have told her about Indians, but once she begins spending time with them and living among them, she sees that the things she heard before weren’t true, and she values their friendship.  The parts where characters behave in prejudiced or condescending ways are uncomfortable, but you can’t have a story about improvement without someone behaving or thinking wrongly in the first place.  At least, that was my interpretation.  I understand that there are others who are more concerned.  At the end of the story, Sarah’s mother doesn’t seem convinced about the Indians, but I like to think that experience may change her as it did Sarah.  I think Sarah’s mother represents where Sarah came from but not where she ends up.  I think it’s important to explain to children the historical context of the story and put the emphasis on Sarah’s changing opinions.  Sarah’s experiences help her to see the truth about her new neighbors.

The author’s note in the beginning of the book explains that the story of Sarah Noble is based on the life of the real Sarah Noble, who did accompany her father to the family’s new homestead when the community of New Milford was forming in order to cook for him while he built the family’s new house.  The real Sarah did live with the nearby tribe of Native Americans for a time, although the author of the story had to invent some of the details of her stay.  It also says that the real Sarah maintained a friendship with the Indian the book refers to as “Tall John.”  The real Sarah become a school teacher as an adult, as the Sarah in the story said that she wanted.  She also married and had children.

Posted on by TracyC

Pocahontas

Pocahontas

Pocahontas by Jan Gleiter and Kathleen Thompson, 1985.

The story about the life of the young Native American woman known as Pocahontas (“Pocahontas” was really a nickname, which the book mentions, although it doesn’t say that her original name was Matoaka) has been told many times in many forms, but this particular book is somewhat sentimental for me because it was the first one I ever read about her when I was a kid. It’s part of a series about famous and legendary figures in history and myth. Pocahontas was a real, historical person, but aspects of her life have taken on the characteristics of legend (as well as providing material for a Disney movie, although the Disney movie takes liberties with the real life of Matoaka/Pocahontas and the movie was not based on this particular rendition of her story).

When this particular book begins, Pocahontas is a grown, married woman going by the name of Lady Rebecca Rolfe. While living in England, she reflects back on her life and youth, remembering when she first met Europeans.

PocahontasEngland

When she was ten years old, she heard her father, Powhatan (who was the chief of their tribe) and other men talking about the white men. Although Pocahontas hears that the white people had betrayed her people’s trust and even killed some of them, she is curious to get a look at them.

PocahontasSettlerChildren

She ends up meeting with a group of boys from Jamestown and playing with them. She begins making friends with people in Jamestown and visiting them from time to time. A man named John Smith becomes curious about the girl and her people and gets Pocahontas to teach him some of her language.  (The book is more accurate than the Disney version here, showing that there is a significant age difference between Pocahontas and John Smith, with Pocahontas being a child at their first meeting.)

PocahontasJohnSmith

Then, one day, there is a feast in Pocahontas’s village, and some of the men of the tribe bring a white man who was caught trespassing in their territory. Pocahontas recognizes the white man as John Smith and, upon realizing that he is about to be executed, intervenes to save his life. (This is one of the most famous parts of the story of Pocahontas’s life, although the exact circumstances surrounding the real-life incident are a little confusing and may have actually been part of a more complex ritual that John Smith didn’t fully understand at the time, not an actual attempt at execution, if the event actually happened at all. This book offers a simplified version of the incident, supposing that John Smith’s life was in real danger, as he described it in his account of what happened.)

PocahontasExecutionAttempt

In the end, the settlers at Jamestown kidnap Pocahontas in the hope that Powhatan would end hostilities with them, using her as a bargaining chip.  (The book says that her father wasn’t too worried because he knew that the settlers were her friends and would treat her well, but I find this part of the book pretty worrying myself, reading it as an adult.  I’m pretty sure that is not how a parent would react to a missing child in real life.  I guess that the book is trying to keep the tone light for children, but it just sounds weird.) Pocahontas remains among the settlers, living according to their lifestyle and taking the name Rebecca. Eventually, she meets a man named John Rolfe and marries him. The two of them have a son together. With her new family, she travels to England and tries to help the people there to understand her people.  (The book says this in a very optimistic way, calling her visit a “success”, although in real life, this visit was largely a propaganda move on the part of the Virginia Company of London. On the other hand, she was, evidently, very well-received in England, if something of a social curiosity.)

PocahontasWedding

The story in the book ends here, with her still in England, thinking back on her life and her reasons for being there. Part of me wishes that it had explained a little more about Pocahontas’s earlier life and some other facts behind her story. Sadly, part of the reason why they might have been reluctant to tell the rest of the story to children was that the real Pocahontas didn’t live very long after the point where the story ends.  As she was preparing to return to Virginia from England, she became very ill and died.  Her exact age at the time of her death is unknown, but she was probably about 21 years old.  Her son, Thomas Rolfe, was very young at the time she died, but they do still have living descendants today.

Overall, I’d say that this is one of those stories that becomes more interesting when you’re older and realize the full depth of it.  This picture book is a very simplified version of the story, meant for kids, but when I was young, it did inspire me to learn more about Pocahontas.  There any many missing details of Matoaka/Pocahontas/Rebecca Rolfe’s life because of the limited records of it, but what is known is fascinating.  It’s sad because she died so young, but that the story of her life lived on in so many imaginations after her death is profound.  Different people, both when she was alive and after her death, tried to use her for their own purposes, but her legend still continues, out-living them all.  I’ve never seen the Disney Pocahontas movies, and I don’t really want to.  I already know how the story ends.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

The Haunting of Cabin 13

Cabin13The Haunting of Cabin 13 by Kristi D. Holl, 1987.

Thirteen-year-old Laurie is looking forward to her family’s vacation. They’ve rented a cabin for a week, Cabin 13, by the lake at Backbone State Park (It’s a real state park in Iowa. Link repaired 10-19-22.), and her friend Jenny is staying there with them. Laurie’s mother isn’t looking forward to the trip. She hates dirt and bugs and doesn’t like the cabin when they arrive. As everyone starts unpacking, Laurie looks around the cabin and finds a note that warns them to leave because the cabin is haunted. Supposedly, it was written by the ghost herself. The note is signed “Eleanor.” Laurie’s mother thinks that they should leave right away, but Laurie and the rest of the family persuade her that it’s just a joke. At first, Laurie’s sure that’s all it is.

Then, the park ranger tells the family that the other families who have tried to stay in that cabin this summer also found similar notes. It might be just a prank, but it might not. He also tells them that a girl named Eleanor, the same age as Laurie and Jenny, drowned there the summer before, and strange things have been seen there since, like lights around the lake. Laurie’s brother, Ricky, thinks it sounds cool that they’re staying in a haunted cabin by a haunted lake. Like others, Laurie thinks that the notes are the product of a prankster, but what would be the point behind it?

The girls meet a pair of brothers who are staying nearby, Kevin and Matt. When they tell them about the note, Matt is eager to investigate. Jenny enjoys flirting with boys, and she’s mostly interested in flirting with good-looking, athletic Kevin. Matt is in a wheelchair, so Jenny doesn’t pay much attention to him. She just makes an awkward comment about cripples being able to contribute to society that makes everyone feel uncomfortable. Although Laurie knows that Jenny’s comment was inappropriately personal and callous, Laurie also underrates Matt’s ability to help with their note mystery at first, and she’s shy about talking to him because she’s often shy around boys. However, needing someone to confide her thoughts in when Jenny isn’t interested, Laurie talks to Matt about her theories about the mysterious notes. Matt turns out to be easy to talk to, helping Laurie get over her nervousness about talking to boys.

At first, Laurie tells Matt that she thinks that the prankster is trying to drive people away from Cabin 13 because something important is hidden there. However, as she starts asking questions about Eleanor, she learns that the notes haven’t just been directed at Cabin 13. Staff at the park have also received notes from “Eleanor.” Laurie also sees a figure in black sneaking around the park, who she is sure is not a ghost.

It isn’t long before Laurie receives more notes from “Eleanor,” hinting that she might be in danger, and she and Jenny see the mysterious lights that people have been talking about. Then, when the children are out in a canoe together, it develops a leak and sinks. Matt panics because his legs are paralyzed, and he can’t swim, but Laurie saves him with the help of some people in another boat.

Was that accident just an accident, or could it have something to do with Eleanor’s “accident” last year? There are plenty of suspects who might have reasons for playing ghost and stirring up trouble at the lake. Matt’s father blames the park ranger for the accident that paralyzed Matt. At a previous visit to the lake, Matt was crossing a road with his father and brother and was struck by a speeding car. Matt father says it wouldn’t have happened if the roads had been policed properly. Laurie realizes that he might have a motive for revenge. Then again, some people have been coming to the lake, drawn by the ghost stories and hoping to see the mysterious lights. Could the ghost be a publicity stunt to drum up business?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Spoilers

When Laurie discovers that Eleanor’s half sister has come to the lake to investigate Eleanor’s death herself, she thinks that she has the mystery solved, but she’s only half right. It’s true that Eleanor’s sister has been responsible for some of the things happening at the lake, but not all of them.  She explains to the kids that Eleanor loved mystery stories and was always playing detective games, but she thinks that perhaps the game got too real for Eleanor the summer that she died.  There is something sinister going on at the lake, something that Eleanor also realized before her death, and there is more to Eleanor’s death than most people know.

At the end of the book, Matt gets a chance to be a hero and stop the bad guy from escaping, using his wheelchair to his advantage because a person on wheels can sometimes move faster than a person on foot.  Even before that, Laurie had gained an appreciation for Matt and his sensible thinking, realizing that a person who is impaired in one way can still have great abilities in other areas of life.  She also comes to think of Matt as being brave for coming back to the site of the accident that made him a paraplegic.  Matt says that he had to come in order to prove to himself that there was nothing inherently bad about the  place and to stop the nightmares he was having about his accident.  Matt and Eleanor’s sister both make Laurie realize that everyone has something difficult or frightening that they have to deal with in their lives; it’s just that some people’s problems are more obvious than others.  Everyone can see what Matt’s dealing with at first glance because he’s in a wheelchair, but no one knew about the pain and fear that Eleanor’s sister was carrying around with her until she admitted it.

I consider this story a pseudo-ghost story because the obvious parts of the haunting were caused by living people, for reasons of their own.  However, Laurie seems to feel that Eleanor’s spirit was there with them, waiting to see the mystery of her death solved.  It’s left open to interpretation, but if Eleanor was there, it was only seen in the odd feelings that Laurie had from time to time, not in any more obvious or physical way.

Something that confused me a little in the book is that, at one point, Jenny tells someone that Laurie already has a reputation for being an amateur detective, having discovered that Jenny herself had been kidnapped when the authorities thought that she had run away from home. Jenny gives full details of the time when she was kidnapped, including who kidnapped her and why and how Laurie figured out where she was. When I read that section of the story, I thought at first that the author was talking about a previous book that she had written with these two characters, but I had trouble figuring out which it was, if any.

Interesting fact: some of the children in the story are named after the author’s own children.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Little Indian Basket Maker

BasketMaker

The Little Indian Basket Maker by Ann Nolan Clark and illustrated by Harrison Begay, 1957.

By “Indian,” the author means Native American.  This book specifically focuses on the  Papago (Tohono O’odam) who live in the Southwestern United States, specifically Arizona.  The story is about a young girl who is starting to learn the traditional art of basket-making, and the book goes into the process involved in making baskets, step by step.   Although the use of “Indian” instead of Native American is somewhat antiquated, and Tohono O’odam is really the proper name for the Papago people, the book has something of an interesting history and the picture it provides of the practice of traditional crafts is fascinating. There is a section at the beginning of the book which explains a little about the history of the Papago (Tohono O’odam) people and where they live.

BasketMakerGrandmother

A young girl explains how her grandmother teaches her the traditional craft of making baskets.  They start by gathering the types of plants that they are going to use.

BasketMakerPlants.jpg

They also need special plants for the dye they will need in order to decorate the baskets.  The girl’s grandmother explains about the different types of decorations they traditionally use.

BasketMakerDesigns

Making baskets is a long process that includes cleaning the plants and tearing them into long strips, bleaching them, soaking them to soften them, dyeing strips used in the design, and weaving them together.

BasketMakerSoftening

The girl weaves a mat that takes days to finish.  It is the first one that she’s made herself.

BasketMakerWeaving

She is very proud of herself when the mat is finished, and she is pleased with the quality of her work.

BasketMakerFinishing

I’ve owned this book since I was a young child, and it was my introduction to traditional crafts.  Later, I found a related book at a thrift store, The Little Indian Pottery Maker.  Until then, I hadn’t realized then just how old the books were and that there were more of them by the same author.

The book, which was written in the 1950s, was one of a group of stories (not exactly a series because they didn’t have a specific set of characters in common and the themes varied somewhat) written by a woman who was a teacher with the United States Indian Service.  The other books that she wrote, including The Little Indian Pottery Maker, focus on members of different Native American tribes.  She was not Native American herself, and the modern view of Indian schools is not favorable (for good reasons), so one might be a little suspicious of a book written about Native Americans by an Indian school teacher. However, these books interest me because of their explanation of traditional crafts. There are no white people in the stories at all, and they have a timeless quality to them.  Reading them, it’s hard to get a sense of exactly when the stories take place because it’s never mentioned, and there aren’t many clues (no mentions of modern technology, it’s all about the crafts).  I haven’t found any of the other books that the author wrote, but these two are very respectful in their tone, and they begin with explanations of the history of the tribes involved in the stories.  According to Andie Peterson in A Second Look: Native Americans in Children’s Books, the author was deliberately trying to write books that her Native American students could relate to.

The art style of the books vary because they had different illustrators.  The illustrator for this particular book was a Navajo painter.

The book is available to read for free online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

The Little Indian Pottery Maker

PotteryMaker

The Little Indian Pottery Maker by Ann Nolan Clark and illustrated by Don Perceval, 1955.

By “Indian,” the author means Native American.  This book specifically focuses on the Pueblo Indians who live in the Southwestern United States, specifically New Mexico and Arizona.  The story is about a young girl who is starting to learn the traditional art of pottery-making, and the book goes into the process involved in making pottery, step by step.   Although the use of “Indian” instead of Native American is somewhat anitquated, the book has something of an interesting history and the picture it provides of the practice of traditional crafts is fascinating. The beginning of the book explains a little about Pueblo Indians, their history, and where they live.

PotteryMakerGettingClay

The young girl tells the story of how her mother introduces her to the traditional craft of making pottery and teaches her how to make her first pot.  She describes every step in the process, from when they collect the clay themselves from a hillside until the pot is finally complete.

PotteryMakerMixingClay

The girl’s mother explains about the different methods used to make pots, and pictures show how pots are shaped.

PotteryMakerRollingClay
PotteryMakerMakingPots

Making pottery is a long process that takes days to complete, including shaping, scraping and smoothing the sides, drying, decorating, and finally firing the pottery.  The girl is proud of the first pot she has ever made.

PotteryMakerFiringPots

I found this book at a thrift store a number of years ago and recognized it because I already owned a related book, The Little Indian Basket Maker, that I liked when I was a young child.  I hadn’t realized then just how old the books were and that there were more of them by the same author.

The book, which was written in the mid-1950s, was one of a group of stories (not exactly a series because they didn’t have a specific set of characters in common and the themes varied somewhat) written by a woman who was a teacher with the United States Indian Service.  The other books that she wrote, including The Little Indian Basket Maker, focus on members of different Native American tribes.  She was not Native American herself, and the modern view of Indian schools is not favorable (for good reasons), so one might be a little suspicious of a book written about Native Americans by an Indian school teacher. However, these books interest me because of their explanation of traditional crafts. There are no white people in the stories at all, and they have a timeless quality to them.  Reading them, it’s hard to get a sense of exactly when the stories take place because it’s never mentioned, and there aren’t many clues (no mentions of modern technology, it’s all about the crafts).  I haven’t found any of the other books that the author wrote, but these two are very respectful in their tone, and they begin with explanations of the history of the tribes involved in the stories.  According to Andie Peterson in A Second Look: Native Americans in Children’s Books, the author was deliberately trying to write books that her Native American students could relate to.

The art style of the books vary because they had different illustrators.  The illustrator for this particular book was not Native American (unlike some of the illustrators of other books), but he was adopted into a Hopi tribe, apparently as an adult because of his accomplishments in representing Hopi culture in art.