Brother Eagle, Sister Sky

In my children's literature class (LIS 6510) with Suzanne Todd, we are covering stereotypes in children's literature. Via a discussion earlier today, I was reminded of an assignment I worked on last semester for collection development with Dr. Holley. The assignment required us to survey and analyze several review sources and give our impressions without doing outside research until the very end of the assignment. It was a pseudo-experiment! Since I am studying public libraries and services to children and young adults (see "about me" for an explanation), I chose to evaluate a collection of reviews for the children's book Brother Eagle, Sister Sky by Susan Jeffers. The following post contains some of my observations and opinions from various parts of the assignment -- to fully understand my commentary, please read the linked articles by Murray and Fry.

Article: The Little Green Lie by Mary Murray (BusinessWeek, 10.29.2007) 

My Stance: Due to the fact that many of the reviews mentioned that the text had been adapted, and several pointedly state that the text bears no resemblance to Chief Seattle's original speech, I was not completely surprised reading this article. Considering that a few of the more detailed reviews openly classified Jeffers's book as "nonfiction," my feeling is mostly disgust directed at the public, who seemed to be more caught up in the "achingly beautiful" pictures rather than the truth and fidelity of the book. If a parent stumbled upon a review of Jeffers' book that classed it as an factual, juvenile non-fiction piece, they wouldn't likely bat an eyelash. The more I ponder this, the more angry I get!

Article: Translation Loses True Meaning by Donn Fry (The Seattle Times: Entertainment & the Arts, 8.22.1993)

My Stance: I actually laughed when I read this commentary. Does Jeffers', her attorney, and publisher have no shame? Perhaps I am a bit naive, but it truly seems that they are in it for the money. I wonder how many people read this article in the Seattle Times and Mary Murray's piece. What is even more frustrating, beyond the producer modifying the credit, is the notion that people did not fact check and readily devoured garbage!

After concluding the experiment, I browsed the ever-popular social media site, goodreads, and was taken by a review posted by Lynne in February of 2009 which is quite similar to the SLJ review:

Author, Susan Jeffers, wrote Brother Eagle, Sister Sky with an environmental theme in mind. I believe that her purpose was to pay respect to Native Americans and their connection with the land. With that said I feel that Jeffers missed the mark with this text and contributed to furthering Native American stereotypes.

Jeffers's illustrations perpetuate the Indian stereotype by including images of people dressed in feathers, headdresses, and fringed animal skins. In addition, Jeffers does not distinguish dress of customs between tribes represented in the text. I would not recommend using this text in our outside of a classroom. While it may have a moving environmental message in it, I am sure other texts could more appropriate deliver the message.

In doing a further bit of web-browsing, I stumbled upon an interesting blog titled American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL), which cited an evaluative piece by Paul Chaat Smith. Here is an excerpt from Smith's work:

Indians have been erased from the Master Narrative of this country, and replaced by the cartoon images that all of us know and most of us believe. At different times the narrative has said we didn't exist and the land was empty, then it was mostly empty and populated by fearsome savages, then populated by noble savages who couldn't get with the program, and on and on. Today the equation is Indian equals spiritualism and environmentalism. In twenty years it will probably be something else.

The more I read about this book, the even less inclined I feel to purchase the item for my "pseudo-library." Note: I never felt that this book would be an appropriate purchase for a small, rural public library due to the fact that there is no instruction/follow-up like there would be in a classroom setting.