Review by Booklist Review
Gr. 5^-10. "All of a sudden I was snatched away from those who loved and cared for me." This moving photo-essay is simply told and focused on the personal. The quotes from individual children of many Indian nations, together with the stirring black-and-white archival group photos and individual portraits, tell the brutal history of the Indian boarding schools, which removed children from their "savage" homes to "civilize" them and teach them to live like white people. In the military-style schools, children were stripped of their hair, their clothes, their names; they were forbidden to speak their languages. For some children, homesickness nearly overpowered them, even killed them; when some children finally did return to their parents, they didn't fit in. Yet there's no romanticism about tribal innocence: Cooper quotes some leaders and children who welcomed the chance to learn the invaders' ways, even as he shows that the forced assimilation was an unspeakable cruelty. There are occasional misleading generalizations about Indians "on the warpath," the role of women, etc.; but for the most part, Cooper is careful to distinguish individual differences among Indian nations. A serious drawback is the lack of source notes, even for direct quotes, and the bibliography is uneven, with no mention, for example, of Shirley Sterling's landmark autobiographical boarding-school novel, My Name Is Seepeetza (1997). However, the spacious design, with thick paper and photos on every page, will draw even middle-grade readers to the children's accounts. The list of Web sites will encourage those who want to read more about this savage experiment that failed, a dark part of American history that for too long has gone largely untold for young readers. --Hazel Rochman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Cooper (The Double V Campaign: African Americans and World War II) delivers a well-documented and sobering depiction of the late-19th-century military-style boarding schools established to instruct children of various Indian tribes in "the white man's way." The author sets the stage in 1879 when Captain Richard Pratt, an officer in the U.S. Army, arrives to take the first trainload of "students" from their respective reservations to the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania. With the Battle of Little Bighorn and the loss of the Black Hills fresh in their memory, Spotted Tail, White Thunder and other Sioux leaders heed Pratt's warning of the dangers of illiteracy. Carlisle, a grueling institution run by Pratt, would become the most prominent Indian School and a model to others, but White Thunder's son would not survive the experience. A caption beneath a stark photograph of Carlisle's rows of gravestones notes, "Most BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] schools had their own cemeteries because so many students died." Quotes from former students at Carlisle and other such schools describe what it was like to forcibly have their hair cut (the Sioux cut their hair only as a sign of sadness or shame; for the Hopi, long hair symbolized fertility), to be removed from their families and to be forbidden to speak their language. Anecdotes about teachers who helped realize the dreams of some youths and the remarkable feats of the schools' athletic teams plus an impressive selection of archival photos (including one of a four-year-old student) round out this wrenching account. Ages 9-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-8-In the late 19th century, government-supported boarding schools were created to educate and assimilate Native American children into the overriding white culture. Cooper examines the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, one of the best known of the boarding schools, and some of its former students. The founder of Carlisle, Captain Richard Henry Pratt, was a former Buffalo soldier and Indian fighter, which may have adversely affected his treatment of Native children and their families. Individual student accounts, as well as fascinating photographs from the National Archives and the Army War College archives, add personal touches to the work. It is difficult to overstate the damages inflicted by these institutions on Native families. The author attempts to show some of the positive experiences, including the athletic development of Jim Thorpe, but glosses over the painful realities of the schools. Students were often kidnapped from their families and forced to abandon their languages, ways of life, and traditions to be assimilated into white culture. Good intentions aside, the boarding schools were part of an effort to destroy Native ways of life, which cannot be examined unemotionally or without a great deal of study. It is apparent that the author has no background in Native studies as offensive generalizations about beliefs and practices, as well as the use of improper names, flow throughout the book. While the boarding schools need to be studied, librarians and teachers should seek out individual accounts by former inhabitants rather than confuse students with this stereotypical and inaccurate work.-Mary B. McCarthy, ACLIN/Colorado State Library, Denver (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) Those who have been following the resurgent debate on depictions of American Indian history and culture in books for children will recognize that Cooper is walking into some dangerous territory-and, in fact, he does make some gaffes (implying, for instance, that traditional ceremonies such as the Navajo Blessing Way died out). But only the most dogmatic critics will fail to appreciate Cooper's enlightening account of Indian ""education."" In an 1879 meeting with the Sioux at Rosebud Reservation, Captain Henry Pratt proposed ""taking their sons and daughters back east, where they would learn English and be taught how to live like white people."" While Cooper acknowledges Pratt's ideals, he is also cognizant of the racism therein, and honest about the horrors faced by the children taken away to such schools as Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. Cooper gives over much of his text to accounts from students at the schools; as much as possible, he attempts to portray their experience from their own points of view, as in this recollection of the humiliating haircuts new students endured: ""In spite of myself, I was carried downstairs and tied fast in a chair. I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck....In my anguish I moaned for my mother, but no one came to comfort me."" Although the book covers such ""success stories"" as Jim Thorpe and Susan La Flesche, there is no attempt to artificially balance what is a terrible story. The many historical photographs are often arresting; there are no source notes, but a bibliography, reading list, and an index are included. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Cooper (Hell Fighters, 1997, etc.) takes a relatively dispassionate look at a cruel chapter in US government/Indian relations: the sometimes-forcible removal of children to Carlisle and other off-reservation boarding schools. Although he is guilty of overgeneralizing (in a chapter titled ``The Indian Way'''as if there were but one'he states, ``When they were teenagers, Native Americans married, had children, and went on the warpath''), the author makes a brave attempt to be evenhanded, balancing the schools' renowned athletic accomplishments and prominent attendees (e.g., Jim Thorpe) against the harsh punishments, outright abuses, and ruthless cultural indoctrination to which students were subjected. Despite scattered successes, it is obvious that the ends were neither justified nor accomplished by the means. Since books about the Indian boarding schools tend to be either indictments or whitewashes, Cooper may skimp on the schools' modern history, but by steering a middle course in his account of their origins, practices, educational philosophy, and early record, he allows readers to draw their own conclusions. Generous helpings of contemporary black-and-white photographs and statements give many students both voices and faces; a concluding list of sources (of varying reliability) includes web sites. (map, b&w photos and reproductions, further reading, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
