This series of stories taking place in 1764 could have been worse. The young protagonist has a name, a family, and friends. In the course of the series, she grows and matures. The author does not represent the Nimíipuu people as savages. But whatever information she got from her advisors is filtered through a white consciousness and further adapted to fit the mold of this formula historical fiction series. All life-threatening conflicts are resolved by the end of each story, and all moral and emotional conflicts are resolved by the end of the series. This writing style is an especially bad thing in historical books about Indian people, whose conflicts—over, for instance, water and land rights, the government’s theft of treaty funds, the issue of sports mascots—are ongoing. And books conceptualized as teaching tools—or worse, books enlisted in the cause of selling a product—usually result in writing that is stilted and boring. This series is no different.
Hey Rob, I was actually looking for something else when i found this post. You know, I got turned on to Kaya by Nez Perce tribal members who wanted me to write about the books in Native Peoples--they said that the books were quite accurate and they highly endorsed them. Don't know why you don't like them...
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, these are kid books, so naturally the books have pleasant resolutions...and they were planned to take place pre-contact.
ReplyDeleteI didn't write this piece. It's an excerpt from Beverly Slapin's review of the doll by way of the American Indians in Children's Literature blog. Click on the link to see the original posting.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what "American Girl" planned, but the stories supposedly take place in 1764. Contacts with the Nez Percé would've been rare at that time, but not unheard of. As you know, Indians as a whole were well beyond the pre-contact era by then.