Culture 4: Native American Literature
Dorris, Michael. Morning Girl. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. May 18, 1999. ISBN 9780786813582
Summary: No matter if dusk or dawn, movement or silence, the culture that is portrayed in the book tells a story of a tribe that unfortunately falls under the conquest of Christopher Columbus and the brutal treatment that was to come. Though they face challenges, the children learn their way through the world, learning to process and persevere through with their teachings still guiding them through every decision they make.
Cultural Analysis: Various perspectives are shown in the story, both rich in their own ways. No sibling is better than the other, in contrast, they are both essential to the story in order to get the full picture of a description of their life on their land and with their family. Through both of their chapter perspectives, we see that their culture is super interconnected with nature. Despite this all, her family, being so grounded with nature and their inner peace and spirits with the earth, finds a way to persevere, such as when her father says “Look into my eyes,’ he told me… Suddenly I saw two tiny girls looking back. Their faces were clear, their brows straight as canoes, and their chins as narrow and clean as lemons...'who are they?' ...'They are the answer to your question,' Father said. 'And they are always here when you need to find them.' Finding ways to depict the inner strength these families carried without telling, rather showing the reader through descriptive imagery.
Reviews: “Like the quiet lap of waves on the sand, the alternating introspections of two Bahamian island children in 1492. Morning Girl and her brother Star Boy are very different: she loves the hush of pre-dawn while he revels in night skies, noise, wind. In many ways they are antagonists, each too young and subjective to understand the other's perspective—in contrast to their mother's appreciation for her brother. In the course of these taut chapters concerning such pivotal events as their mother's losing a child, the arrival of a hurricane, or Star Boy's earning the right to his adult name, they grow closer. In the last, Morning Girl greets— with cordial innocence—a boat full of visitors, unaware that her beautifully balanced and textured life is about to be catalogued as ``very poor in everything,'' her island conquered by Europeans. This paradise is so intensely and believably imagined that the epilogue, quoted from Columbus's diary, sickens with its ominous significance. Subtly, Dorris draws parallels between the timeless chafings of sibs set on changing each other's temperaments and the intrusions of states questing new territory. Saddening, compelling—a novel to be cherished for its compassion and humanity.”
Kirkus Reviews
Connections: Sibling differences is something that is definitely relatable in this book. While we may differ and view the world completely differently than one another, our cultures and values still run deep in our blood like the roots that ground us and hold us up to who we are.
Driving Hawk Sneve, Virginia. Illustrated by Ellen Beier. The Christmas Coat: Memories of My Sioux Childhood. ISBN: 978-1-941813-25-6
Summary: The book starts off by Virginia walking to school in terrible weather conditions. These conditions show that she is sustaining challenges just to get through daily life and how she continues persevering. Still, Virginia dreams of a new coat to endure the conditions of school. Big sister duties. She waits for boxes that are to come with winter clothes. Virginia and Eddie never got first pick of the Theast boxes because they are the children of the priest and expected to pick last. This didn't stop Virginia from setting her eyes on a specific coat. Therefore, when her friends begin picking out the items in the boxes, she feels worried when her friend Evelyn picks out the one she has her eyes set on. However, as the time goes by, she comes to realize that maybe that coat wasn’t the best one; instead, she falls in love with the one her mom gifted her because it comes directly from her mom’s heart.
Cultural Analysis: Some term words such as “lapin” meaning rabbit in French, share the lexile awareness. There is a culture of selflessness and communal thoughts of a society, spreading the feel and cause of one person. Sharing and working together to help each other out. Inclusion of headdresses and dances. The gifts from Santa are little snacks of food like apples and peanuts. Parents who do anything for their children and find a way to get them the necessities and wants they need as well. The images stood out to me because even though they weren’t super detailed, the images were blurry and colorful, I could truly feel their emotions. I also enjoyed seeing the headdresses and gifts that Santa showed up with. The images here truly tie the story and feeling together.
Reviews: “Virginia’s personality shines through in this poignant story that entertains and informs.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) hav
“With its authentic portrait of a Sioux childhood and Christmas traditions and its eventual happy ending, this is a quiet but affecting picture book.”—Horn Book
“This richly descriptive narrative is well matched by detailed and expressive watercolors.”—School Library Journal
Connections: The family truly finds love and happiness in the little things of daily life. This culture depicted definitely teaches her to be selfless. Some cultures value selflessness and community feelings over their own dreams and values. The book also represents the parents who are observant and sacrifice anything for their children and are attentive of their wants and needs, and may I add, through actions rather than ]words. In some children's books there are parents telling their children how much they love them, but with this simple act, you are able to see the love.
Jones SaSuWeh, Dan. Stealing Little Moon: The Legacy of the American Indian Boarding Schools. Scholastic Focus. September 3, 2024. ISBN: 9781338889475
Summary: This book covers the history of how children were truly and plainly mis-educated and mistreated at such a young age just to make them fit into the “American” ways.
Cultural Analysis: very easily, well explained for a children’s literature book. Great job in detailing the method in which the American government took advantage of young children in assimilating them, rather than “wiping them out,” with military manpower because it was the “cheaper” option. Storytelling and the importance of it passing down to generations. Similar to immigrants who face identity struggles. Assimilation. Changing the name to sound more white or “English,” rather than honoring their name and saying it as it is said in their culture.
Reviews: “Relays the heart-wrenching experiences of the American Indian boarding school era.
This comprehensive and complex text by Jones (Ponca) follows four generations of his family’s education at Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, starting with the experience of his grandmother. In 1885, when she was just 4, government officials stole her from her family and drove her a great distance away by wagon for boarding school. Ponca Tribe members had already been forcibly relocated from their Nebraska homelands by the U.S. government to Oklahoma. Jones explains how the boarding schools erased Native culture from students’ lives to assimilate them into dominant white society. He details the cultural genocide and displacement of Native peoples, describing the poverty and other lingering effects through subsequent generations. Throughout the text, which combines general historical background with his family’s story, readers learn about the abuse of and systematic attacks on American Indian people over the centuries that the boarding schools were in existence…”
Kirkus Reviews
Connections: Today, there are various groups and organizations fighting the good, hopeful cause of spreading awareness and advocating for the remaining Native American populations and Indians who still reside in their rightfully owned land.
Leitich Smith, Cynthia. Rain is Not My Indian Name. HarperCollins. July 31, 2001. ISBN: 0-688-17397-7
Summary: Rain is a young teenager who has a difficult time dealing with grief after the loss of her best friend/crush as of late, and as the story develops, we learn about her mom’s passing away as well. Rain tries to deal with all the pain and feels that she must retreat into herself and isolate from everyone else. As she experiences handling different emotions such as her brother being engaged and the relationship between his fiance and him, the youth camp that her tia is hosting and in charge of, and dealing with her dad being away in Guam. Ultimately, she tries to find her place and identity in the world that she is part of. She learns that
Cultural Analysis: Her writing is journal type sometimes there is and there isn’t cultural stereotypes for example, she says she wanted to be a native woman and “considered Sachagaweia..I chose politician Sherice Davids instead” (chapter 7). This gives the reader exposure to a . it’s good that she writes and acts like a “regular” person, rather than making everything about her struggle or challenge be that she is Native American.
Review: “Tender, funny, and full of sharp wordplay, Smith’s first novel deals with a whole host of interconnecting issues, but the center is Rain herself. At just 14, Rain and her best friend Galen promise always to celebrate their birthdays; hers on New Year’s Day, his on the Fourth of July. They had just begun to see themselves not just as best friends but as girl and boy that New Year’s Eve night, when Galen is killed in a freak accident. Rain has already lost her mother and her Dad’s stationed in Guam. She’s close to her Grandpa, her older brother, and his girlfriend, who realize her loss and sorrow but have complicated lives of their own. Her response to Galen’s death is tied to her tentative explorations of her own mixed Native American and German/Irish heritage, her need and desire to learn photography and to wield it well, and the general stirrings of self and sex common to her age. Rain has to maneuver all of this through local politics involving Galen’s mother and the local American Indian Youth Camp (with its handful of local Indian teens, and Rain’s erstwhile “second-best friend” who is black). What’s amazing here is Rain’s insight into her own pain, and how cleanly she uses language to contain it”
Kirkus Reviews
Connections: Something that I noticed throughout little parts of the book here and there was that their culture judges other cultures such as black people, or anyone different from them. This is unfortunately relatable because growing up, my aunts and uncles always made fun of me for being the darkest skin colored of all the grandkids. It’s engrained in our brains in the Latino community that having light complexions in skin color as well as eye color is a “better” thing, but this is merely a result of colonization and the thought process of inferiority with the oppressors for so many years. Another major connection was the child’s dealing with grief. I liked that this book had teenage grief exposure/representation.
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