Alive and Well and Reclaiming Their Cultural Voice: Third Generation Native American Children’s Literature

Abstract

Sad as it seems, General Philip Sheridan’s famous saying, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” reflects what many young readers might find if they search their local bookstore or library for children’s and adolescent literature about American Indians. It is not that books about American Indians are not available; in fact, as Mary Gloyne Byler remarked in 1973 and again, 20 years later, in 1999, “If anything, there are too many children’s books about American Indians” (47). She goes on to explain, “There are too many books featuring painted, whooping, befeathered Indians closing in on too many forts, maliciously attacking ‘peaceful’ setders or simply leering menacingly from the background; too many books in which white benevolence is the only thing that saves the day for the incompetent, childlike Indian; too many stories setting forth what is ‘best’ for American Indians” (47). From the descriptions of the books that she gives, it is apparent that she is describing books about Indians in the past, which are the books that have, until more recently, dominated American Indian children’s literature.