Showing posts with label Graphic novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Graphic novel. Show all posts

Friday, March 15, 2024

Native Readers are gonna be PSYCHED to know Arigon Starr has a new SUPER INDIAN book for us all!

One of my most-dear memories is when I was working with a group of elementary-aged Native children in New Mexico and told them about Arigon Starr's Super Indian. At lunch time, one girl looked for me and asked if she could read it. Of course, I handed it to her and she was riveted! She laughed, and smiled, and I knew that book was gonna be a hit with our communities. 

As other Native people read Super Indian, the joy in what Arigon Starr created was palpable. There was so much in there -- for readers of all ages -- that it quickly became a favorite of many Native readers. The second volume did, too. 

And today I am PSYCHED to tell you the third volume is is finished and at the printers! Here's the cover:



Here's the description:

When an ordinary reservation boy eats tainted commodity cheese and gains superpowers, hilarity ensues! The third volume in the Super Indian graphic novel series includes two new adventures, plus a bonus issue featuring Laguna Woman. Rounding out the edition are profiles of two real-life super Indians, MLB Baseball All-Star Allie Reynolds and formidable American Indian Movement activist Fern Eastman Mathias. Arigon Starr returns as writer/artist, with Janet Miner as the editor. 64 full-color pages of action, adventure and laughs for all ages.
 
ISBN: 978-0-9859-5354-6
Trade Paperback
Wholesale price per book:    $17.00
Retail Price per book:               $24.99




And here's the full announcement: 

ARIGON STARR RELEASES THE LONG-AWAITED GRAPHIC NOVEL
“SUPER INDIAN VOLUME THREE

When An Ordinary Reservation Boy Eats Tainted Commodity Cheese, Hilarity Ensues.
The Native American Superhero Returns With New Adventures For All Ages.

March 14, 2024 – Los Angeles, CA – Wacky Productions Unlimited and Rezium Studios are excited to announce the release of SUPER INDIAN VOLUME THREE, the latest collection of comic tales of the reservation sensation Super Indian. The 64 page full color graphic novel features words and art from multiple American Indian Youth Literature award-winner Arigon Starr and is edited by Janet Miner.

Super Indian Volume One and Super Indian Volume Two have both found enthusiastic audiences within the Native American community, educational institutions and libraries across the US and Canada. Volume One is on its tenth printing, with Volume Two on its seventh printing. Super Indian has been featured in World Literature Today and First American Art print magazines and online via PBS Books online. Arigon’s comic art has been recognized and included in major art exhibitions including the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ; the Gilcrease Museum, Philbrook Museum, First American Museum and Oklahoma Contemporary, all in Oklahoma, and at the KHM – Musuemsverband in Vienna, Austria.

Super Indian was introduced as a comedy audio theater broadcast in 2006. Native Voices at the Autry, a Los Angeles theater company dedicated to producing new works by Native Americans, commissioned an audio theater series based on the initial ten-minute radio play. The program debuted on college, independent and Native radio stations in 2007.

Arigon Starr developed her radio scripts into a comic book. “I wanted the art of the comic to have a timeless look, a homage to my favorite 1980s and 90s comics,” she enthused.

Wacky Productions Unlimited, an independent publisher, released the first Super Indian graphic novel in 2012. The graphic novel gained attention with Native American readers and was championed by librarians, teachers and college educators. Arigon and her work on Super Indian has been featured in online and print media, with appearances in books such as Dreaming In Indian: Contemporary Native American Voices and The Routledge Companion to Native American Literature. Starr’s comic work garnered awards in 2018 from the American Indian Library Association's Youth Literature Award for her anthology Tales of the Mighty Code Talkers and in 2023 for her illustrations for Contenders: Two Native Americans, One World Series. Arigon’s artwork has also been featured online via The Nib, Vox Media’s Polygon and Colorado’s Pop Culture Classroom series Colorful History.

Starr’s work as a multimedia artist brought her to the attention of Providence Pictures, the producers of the PBS series Native America. She was profiled in the episode Women Rule, alongside three other trail blazers. Arigon showcased her musical talents, humor, wisdom and work on Super Indian. The program aired nationally in 2023, bringing attention to the diversity of Native American contributions to contemporary culture.

Super Indian Volume Three includes:

Super Indian Issue #8, “Old School,” A tale of revenge featuring a new-age guru who uses an evil scented gel to take over the Leaning Oak Reservation and the aged avenger who helps Super Indian regain himself.

Super Indian Issue #9, “Call of the Wild,” A thrilling adventure featuring a sentient Mother Bear, a world-renowned Native American scientist and the twisted rock star who hunts to kill on the Leaning Oak Reservation.

Laguna Woman Issue #1, “Lo, The Poor Laguna Woman,” features female superhero Phoebe Francis/Laguna Woman, who has the worst day ever on her homelands in New Mexico.

Real Super Indians: Real life profiles of Major League Baseball All-Star Allie Reynolds and fiery American Indian Movement Activist Fern Eastman Mathias.

“Super Indian’s adventures provide a glimpse into the contemporary world of Native Americans. The fun, edgy humor can be experienced on many levels by a wide variety of readers,” said CEO/Publisher/Editor Janet Miner. Arigon Starr beams, 
“It has been the highlight of my life to bring these comics to life. I am creating the Native themed comics I dreamed about as a kid.”
The book is available for purchase from the Super Indian Comics website and Amazon.com.

Wacky Productions Unlimited is a female led, Native co-owned company based in Los Angeles, CA. Wacky has released four music CD projects from Arigon Starr, co-produced her stage and audio theater productions and is the publisher of the Super Indian catalog.

Contact: Janet Miner

info@superindiancomics.com
Website: https://superindiancomics.com




Thursday, February 08, 2024

Highly Recommended: A GIRL CALLED ECHO OMNIBUS



A Girl Called Echo Omnibus
Written by Katherena Vermette (Red River Metis)
Illustrated by Scott B. Henderson (not Native); Colors by Donovan Yaciuk (not Native)
Published in 2023
Publisher: Highwater Press
Reviewer: Jean Mendoza

Review Status: Highly Recommended

You might have seen AICL's positive comments about katherena vermette's graphic novel series A Girl Called Echo. I guess I should clarify that this "Echo" has nothing to do with the mini-series currently getting a lot of attention! I haven't seen it yet.

Vermette's protagonist Echo is a socially isolated Metis teen in what is currently called Winnipeg, Manitoba. She finds herself abruptly pulled against her will into key events in the history of the Metis -- events which involved some of her direct ancestors. She meets them, witnesses their individual struggles, and is just as abruptly transported back to her present. Her time travels carry her through generations of traumas and (often short-lived) victories. The past echoes in her. 

Gradually, in her present time, she makes friends at school. She connects with her seemingly tireless and caring foster mother, and prepares for her mom to come home from what appears to be an inpatient facility of some kind.

If you've appreciated A Girl Called Echo as much as I have, you'll be pleased to know that in 2023, Highwater Press published A Girl Called Echo OMNIBUS -- a collection of all four books, with some new informational material, evocative end papers, a foreword by Dr. Chantal Fiola, and a critical essay by Brenda Mcdougall. The timelines, maps, and other information from the individual volumes are also part of the Omnibus, providing important context for Echo's experiences. It's available in paperback and as an e-book. 

The Omnibus is a visually pleasing, "one-stop" resource for fans of Echo, for educators, and for anyone who wants to better understand the history of the Metis in what is currently called Canada -- and how that history can play out in the hearts and minds of contemporary Metis, like Echo and her family. 

Portage and Main has also published a teacher guide for A Girl Called Echo, created by Anishinaabe educator Reuben Boulette. It's available as an e-book or in coil-bound soft-cover. 

You can view excerpts of it on the publisher's Web site -- highly recommended!

With the success of A Girl Called Echo, it's my fervent hope that we'll begin to see more graphic-novel explorations of Indigenous people's history of what's currently called the United States. -- grounded in the present as well as in accurate representations of the past.





Friday, October 29, 2021

Highly Recommended! A Girl Called Echo, Volume 4: Road Allowance Era

 



A Girl Called Echo, Vol.4: Road Allowance Era
Written by Katherena Vermette (Red River Metis)
Illustrated by Scott B. Henderson; Colors by Donovan Yaciuk
Published in 2021
Publisher: Highwater Press
Reviewer: Jean Mendoza
Review Status: Highly Recommended


This will be a "Short and Sweet"* recommendation of the fourth book in the "A Girl Called Echo" graphic novel series. Katherena Vermette, Scott B. Henderson, and Donovan Yaciuk have teamed up again for another chapter in the story of Echo, a time-traveling contemporary Metis teen. 

Here are four of the many reasons to recommend it:

First: Katherena Vermette is Red River Metis, and her story is about Red River Metis people -- historical and contemporary -- in what is currently called Canada. Pivotal, and often traumatic, moments (such as the execution of Louis Riel, and government-sanctioned destruction of Metis communities) are given an Indigenous focus they don't receive in typical history classrooms. As with the previous Echo books, Vermette includes a timeline and other Metis-specific resources to deepen the reader's understanding of Echo's experiences when she travels to the past, and to help create a through-line to her current distresses. 

Second: Meeting one's forebears while time-traveling is a prospect that intrigues writers and consumers of speculative fiction. It may be presented as comedy (e.g., the Back to the Future films), or as drama (as in Octavia Butler's devastating Kindred). Road Allowance is primarily dramatic, though it has some very sweet, tender moments. I appreciate that Vermette keeps Echo from interacting directly with the major historical figures. That would have been a mess. Instead, what's foregrounded is the Metis: how they lived, what they hoped for, what they endured, and how the past may be present in a Metis child and her family, today. 

Third: One of my favorite things about this fourth volume is that it shows Echo and her contemporary family healing from whatever trauma led to Echo's mother being in an institution. Mother hugs daughter. Echo smiles big.  An ancestor tells her she is beautiful. A school friend listens to her expressions of anger and pain, and offers a helpful perspective. And Echo finds that she can decide when she will go to the past, and when she will go home.

Fourth: The story is thought-provoking even though Echo's far from the only fictional character ever to be what Vonnegut called "unstuck in time." For me, an especially lovely bit for thought lies in ways to think about the protagonist's name. Intergenerational trauma reverberates in Echo, at school and at home. She embodies the idea of "echoes of the past." But, when she interacts with her ancestors during their times, she also embodies what I think of as echoes of support or hope from future generations to the forebears who needed reasons to carry on in the face of racism, dispossession, betrayal, and genocide. 

We hope you'll share the whole series, including Volume 4: The Road Allowance Era, with middle schoolers and teens you know. Though it's set in what's currently called Canada, the Indigenous people didn't make the border, and the experiences on either side of it run parallel, when they don't directly intersect.

*A Short and Sweet Rec is not an in-depth analysis. It is our strategy to tell you that we recommend a book we have read. We will definitely refer to it in book chapters and articles we write, and in presentations we do. Our Short and Sweet Recs include four reasons why we recommend the book.

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

RECOMMENDED: Red River Resistance: A Girl Called Echo, V.2


Red River Resistance: A Girl Called Echo, Volume 2 
Written by Katherena Vermette (Metis)
Illus. by Scott B. Henderson. Colors by Donovan Yaciuk 
Published in 2019
Publisher: Highwater Press
Reviewed by Jean Mendoza 
Status: Recommended

Red River Resistance is the second graphic novel in Katherena Vermette's A Girl Called Echo series. The Metis teen protagonist of Volume 1 (Pemmican Wars) is still quiet, still spends a lot of time with earbuds in, listening to her music, but she's becoming less isolated. She is befriended by a classmate named Micah. She gets involved with the school's Indigenous Student Leadership group, under the guidance of teachers Mr. Bee and Mx Francois. She plays in the snow with her foster family. And she smiles a bit. But powerful dreams and daydreams still take her into the Metis history of what is currently called Canada. This time, her dream episodes are set in 1869-70, when political machinations in Canada focused on pushing Indigenous and Metis people further and further west. Metis leader Louis Riel is a central figure in the dream events Echo experiences. 
The first Echo book established that Echo is in foster care because her mother is in some sort of facility (mental health care? halfway house?). We can guess that historical or intergenerational trauma may be affecting the family. Echo's dreaming translates facts she learns in class into stories of her Metis ancestors. More than once, Echo wakes with tears streaming down her face. She feels the impact of historical events viscerally, (re)living hopeful and joyous moments as well as the pain of betrayal and shattered hopes, displacements, departures, and violence witnessed.  

Though it's not the story's only "message," teachers and others who work with young people need to be mindful that children and their family members may be affected in the present by what happened during earlier stages of settler-colonization. Intergenerational trauma may not be easily recognizable, but it's real. It can be a factor in depression, loneliness, child neglect, and other problems that are generally considered mental health issues, and the effects of those are communicated from generation to generation through actions and beliefs.

The more time I spend with this book, the more I appreciate the author's and the illustrator's & colorist's craft:
  • Character development. Echo's teachers, Mr. Bee and Mx Francois, are believable and rounded-out, though Mx Francois (pronouns they, them, their/s) hasn't yet had as much to say as Mr. Bee has. Mr. Bee, for example, stands in front of a classroom of benignly disengaged students and talks about what he loves: history. Notice how he seems to just assume his dozing, note-passing students are getting what they need from the information he's sharing. 
  • Detail in the graphics. Take time to read the screen on Echo's mp3 player. Notice the subtly pleased looks on the faces of the two teachers as they watch Echo and the other students talking together after the Indigenous Leadership bake sale. And spend a moment with the panel that shows the exhilaration Echo and her friend feel when they believe, briefly, that Louis Riel's efforts have succeeded -- wow!    
  • Things that pique interest: Such as -- Echo's foster mom -- what's her story? She has a houseful, including a child with special physical needs (seen in Pemmican Wars). Yet she treats Echo with great concern and respect, and when Echo seeks her out after a very bad dream, she seems surprised but her from-the-heart response is perfect. 
  • The back matter. A detailed Red River Resistance timeline and the Metis List of Rights from 1870 helped me better understand Mr. Bee's lectures and Echo's dreams. Both were essential, in fact.
A particular strength of the Echo books is that so far, Katherena Vermette has not had Echo interact directly with real historical figures in her dreams. Her relationships of the past are with people about her age, who seem to be her guides (Marie in Pemmican Wars, Benjamin in Red River Resistance.) I hope that trend continues. It's much more effective, in my opinion, to have her be primarily an observer, than to imagine fake dialogue between a 21st century middle schooler and someone such as Louis Riel.

Something to watch for: Volume 3 of A Girl Called Echo is due out in February 2020!



Thursday, August 30, 2018

Best Graphic Novels by Native Writers

This morning, I read Diversity in Graphic Novels at the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) website. I hoped it would include graphic novels by Native writers, and I was disappointed. [Note: this blog post is being added to the article. Thanks, NCTE!) I clicked through a few of the links and saw that Laura Jimenez's list of Graphic Novels to Keep includes Trickster, edited by Matt Dembicki. But there's so much more than that, NCTE! There's anthologies, super heroes, historical and realistic stories... See?



I've read many! And reviewed several, and so, I decided to create a list. I hope NCTE will add it to their article. Hurray! NCTE is going to add it to their article. Some links below are to my reviews; others are to author sites, articles about the graphic novel, or Native bookstores I recommend. This is a list-in-progress! I'll be back to add to it from time to time. It will help if you submit ones you know of (use comment option below or send me an email). I'll add it to the list and credit you with the suggestion.  And... I don't have age-of-reader listed for any of these because that varies tremendously, depending on the reader! My request: order them for your library and then decide where, on your shelves, they ought to go.

Suggestions for anyone interested in graphic novels by Native writers:





____

And now... the list (in progress):

Henry, Jr., Gordon and Elizabeth LaPensée. Not [Just] [An]Other, (Sovereign Traces, Vol I), Makwa Enewed, 2018.

LaPensée, Elizabeth. Deer Woman: An Anthology. Native Realities, 2017.

Nelson, Jonathan. The Wool of Jonesy. Native Realities. 2016.

Nicholson, Hope, (ed). Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection, Vol I. Alternative History Comics, 2015.

Nicholson, Hope, (ed). Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection, Vol II. Alternative History Comics. 2017.

Robertson, David Alexander. Will I See? HighWater Press. 2017.

Starr, Arigon. Super Indian Vol. IWacky Productions Unlimited. 2012.

Starr, Arigon. Super Indian Vol. IIWacky Productions Unlimited, 2015.

Starr, Arigon, (ed). Tales of the Mighty Code Talkers. Native Realities Press. 2016.

Storm, Jen. Fire Starters. HighWater Press. 2017.

Tso, Theo. Captain Paiute. Native Realities. 2015.

Van Camp, Richard. The Blue Raven. Pearson. 2015.

Van Camp, Richard. A Blanket of Butterflies. HighWater Press. 2015.

Van Camp, Richard. Spirit. South Slave Divisional Education Council. 2016. 

Vermette, Katherena. A Girl Called Echo. HighWater Press. 2017.


Update: I'll be adding suggestions from readers, below:

Grant, Andrea. Minx: Dream War, published in 2011 by Copious Amounts: Ardden; recommended by Lorisia MacLeod.

Hope, Ishmael. Strong Man, published by the Association of Alaska School Boards in 2007; recommended by Kelly Eldridge and by L'aakaw Éesh Kyle Wark. 

Laboucane-Benson, Patti. The Outside Circle, published in 2015 by House of Anansi Press, recommended by Gail Arlene de Vos. 

Mitchell, Brandon. Various titles in the comics for youth, published by The Healthy Aboriginal Network

Odjick, Jay. Kagagi, The Raven, published in 2010 by Arcana Comics, Inc. 

Robertson, David Alexander. 7 Generations series, published by Portage and Main Press; recommended by Monique Woroniak. 

Robertson, David Alexander. Tales From Big Spirit series, published by Portage and Main Press; recommended by Monique Woroniak. 

Van Camp, Richard. The Three Feathers, published in 2016 by Portage and Main Press, recommended by Allie Jane Bruce. 

Wade, Katherine. Tsaani (The Grizzly Bear Story), published in 2005 by Nay'dini'aa na' Publishing; recommended by Kelly Eldridge. 

Yahgulanaas, Michael Nicoll. Red: A Haida Manga published in 2014 by Douglas & McIntyre; recommended by Gail Arlene de Vos. 

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Recommended: MOONSHOT: THE INDIGENOUS COMICS COLLECTION - Volume 2


Edited by Hope Nicholson, Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection, Volume 2 has stories from several people who you may know from previous AICL reviews of their work.

In particular, I'm thinking of Richard Van Camp. Some of you may recall that he is Tlicho Dene from Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories of Canada. For this review, I'm focusing on his "Water Spirits." Set in Yellowknife, the story opens with a science teacher talking to his class. (Bonus: the illustrator, Haiwei Hou, modeled the teacher after Richard, which was a surprise to Richard when he saw the illustrations.) They're about to head out to a gold mine where the tour guide will take them deeper into the mine than most tours go. There are cultural and spiritual aspects to "Water Spirits" but I am focusing on the destructive aspect of mining.

As we see the bus full of kids on its way to the mine, there is some snark and banter. One kid wishes the mine was still open. He thinks it would be a great summer job, and he kind of doesn't like the history that their teacher shares, en route to the mine. That history? That the tour guide's family has lived in that area for hundreds of years before the mine opened in 1948.

On the tour, the students learn that the mine brought an end to so much. Wildlife left the area. The river was polluted and Indigenous people couldn't fish from it anymore. A student asks if the technology and jobs from the mine brought other opportunities that made life easier for them, but the guide won't take that bait. He replies with more information:
"This giant mine no longer operates because it is one of the most contaminated groundwater sites in Canada. For 50 years, almost 240,000 tonnes of arsenic trioxide waste was released into the ground and water where it remains."
The students are surprised. "Arsenic?" they ask, puzzled. "Didn't the gold get dug out with hammers?" they say.

That--for me--is a crucial moment in this story. Children's books, textbooks, television shows, and movies about gold mining perpetuate an image of some old guy with a pan, using it to find gold in streams of water. Others show men with pick axes, working in dark shafts. The reality, though, of how gold was taken from the earth is much darker than that. At that point in the story, the guide takes the students into a very dark tunnel full of pipes and tells them about the "roasting" method of extracting gold from rock.



Stories that present mining--accurately--are vitally important. But here's the status quo: Instead of the truth, kids get inaccurate romantic nonsense about heroic self-made Americans who toughed it out, staking claims and panning for gold. That nonsense is even worse when we consider what happened to Native people who were "in the way" of those get-rich expeditions. For more on this, you can take a look at Exterminate Them: Written Accounts of Murder, Rape, and Enslavement of Native Americans during the California Gold Rush by Clifford E. Trafzer and Joel R. Hyer.

In addition to Van Camp's "Water Spirits" there are many other excellent stories. Elizabeth LaPensée's story, "They Who Walk as Lightning" is also about protecting water. Erika Wurth (author of Crazy Horse's Girlfriend) wrote about Moonshot and featured this panel from LaPensée's story:


If you are following Native news about our opposition to pipelines, that image will remind you, perhaps, of the Water Protectors at Standing Rock.

Here's the Table of Contents for Moonshot: 




Scanning it you'll see familiar names--and names you should look out for if you're interested in writing by Native people. And if you haven't already gotten a copy of Volume I, do that, too, when you order Volume 2.

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Richard Van Camp's A BLANKET OF BUTTERFLIES

Check out the cover for Richard Van Camp's A Blanket of Butterflies:



Gorgeous, isn't it? A Blanket of Butterflies, illustrated by Scott B. Henderson, is new this year (2015) from Highwater Press, an imprint of Portage & Main Press in Canada. That sword? It is a key piece of this story.

When you open the cover, here's the first page:



As the story opens, Sonny is at the Northern Life Museum in Fort Smith, Northwest Territory. He's looking at a samurai suit of armor when he notices a man who is also looking at it. The man's name is Shinobu. See the paper he's pulling from his coat? He's at the museum with a specific purpose: to pick up that suit. It belongs to his family. The museum staff worked to identify who it belongs to, and then got in touch with Shinobu's family.

I gotta say--I love how Van Camp's story gets going--and here's why. So many things in museums are there due to theft and exploitation. Grave robbing of Native graves is rampant. Native protests led Congress to take action. In 1990, Congress wrote the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to help tribal peoples reclaim remains and artifacts (see the FAQ). That law, and A Blanket of Butterflies, is all about dignity and humanity, for all peoples.

Back to the story...

There's something missing from the display. A sword. Shinobu learns where it is and sets out to get it, but Sonny knows where it is, too, and he also knows that it is risky for Shinobu to go there alone. Sonny follows him, and strikes up a conversation, noting that Shinobu has a butterfly tattoo on his hand. Things don't go well. Shinobu gets hurt...

Yesterday (Friday, November 14) I listened to Acimowin on CJSR, an independent radio station in Edmondton, Canada. The guest? Richard Van Camp. I listened to him talk about A Blanket of Butterflies and wish you could have heard him, too. There's a grandma in this story. She's the hero. Hearing him talk about her... awesome.

Get a copy of A Blanket of Butterflies for your library or classroom, or for your own young readers. I really like it and highly recommend it.

And--check out that weekly radio show, Acimowin, too, on Friday mornings. You can listen online. One of the best things people who write, review, edit, or publish children's and young adult literature can do, is listen to Native voices. Learn who we are, and what we care about. It'll help you do a better job at writing, or reviewing, or editing, or selecting, or... deselecting! Acimowin is hosted by Jojo, who tweets from @acimowin. I laughed out loud more than once, listening to the banter between these First Nations people... (Note: the radio show is not for young kids.) Love the graphics for the show!




Saturday, May 02, 2015

Richard Van Camp's THE BLUE RAVEN

New this year (2015) is Richard Van Camp's graphic novel, The Blue Raven. Illustrated by Steven Keewatin Sanderson, the story is about a stolen bicycle, and, healing. Here's the cover:



The bike, named Blue Raven, belongs to a kid named Benji. He comes out of the library (how cool is that?) and his bike is gone (not cool!). Trevor, the older brother of a kid in his class, sees Benji and offers to help him find the bike.

This isn't just any bike (no bike is, really), but this one? Benji's dad gave it to him when he moved out of their house.

When Benji was born, his dad called him Tatso because his eyes were the same blue color as a baby raven's eyes. Tatso is a Tlicho word. It means Blue Raven.  And--it is the name his dad called the bike, too.

As you might imagine, it is very special to Benji.


We learn all that--and more--as Benji and Trevor drive around on Trevor's four-wheeler, looking for the bike. Trevor is Metis, but wasn't raised with Native traditions in the same way that Benji was. Indeed, there is a moment when Trevor mocks Benji. Confident in what he knows and bolstered by memories of time with members of the community, Benji counters Trevor, who is taken aback and a bit snarky. By the end of this short graphic novel, though, Trevor is with Benji at a gathering where Trevor is invited to dance and the two have agreed to keep looking for the Blue Raven.

Steven Keewatin Sanderson's illustrations are terrific! From anger over his bike being stolen, to the tears Benji sheds in the flashback parts of the story, to the community scenes at the drum dance, they are a perfect match for Van Camp's story. Keep an eye out for his work!

The Blue Raven, published in 2015 by Pearson, is part of its Well Aware series and sold as a package. However, it can be purchased directly from Richard Van Camp at his site. I highly recommend it.

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Beverly Slapin's Review of Pomplun, Smelcer, and Bruchac's NATIVE AMERICAN CLASSICS


Editor's Notes: 
1) This essay may not be published elsewhere without written permission from its author, Beverly Slapin. Copyright 2012 by Beverly Slapin. All rights reserved.
2) I selected Two Wolves as the illustration to use for Slapin's essay because Joseph Bruchac and Richard Van Camp are two Native writers giving us outstanding work.  A selected set of illustrations is available at Pages from Native American Classics. 

____________________________________________

Title page for last story in book
Pomplun, Tom, editor, and John E. Smelcer and Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki), associate editors, Native American Classics (Graphic Classics, Volume 24). Eureka Productions, 2013.

INTRODUCTION

The “Graphic Classics” books, unlike other graphic adaptations, are anthologies, with each short story, poem, or abridged novel illustrated by a different artist. Native American Classics highlights the nascent English writing and publication by Native people, including Zitkala-Sa, Charles A. Eastman, E. Pauline Johnson, and others. It’s not the only anthology of earlier Indian writing; many others come to mind. One of my favorites is Paula Gunn Allen’s excellent Voice of the Turtle: American Indian Literature, 1900-1970 (Ballantine, 1995). One of the differences between Native American Classics and the other anthologies is that its graphic format will appeal to “reluctant” readers and others who are attracted to this particular genre. But Native American Classics is not without problems.

Way back, when the earliest Indian writers published their pictographs on vertical and horizontal outcroppings, they transmitted information, history, lessons, culture, language, and more. 

Fast-forward a few centuries, to the early 1900s. Stories by Indian writers of that era had to be both carefully written and suitable for publication by, of course, non-Native publishers. As such, many of the lessons they imparted were so subtle that a casual reader, especially one from outside the culture, might not recognize their messages.

If there were pictures, they supported the story rather than obstructing it; they provided a background rather than a foreground; and they enhanced, rather than interfered with, the reader’s imagination. And, perhaps most importantly, the pictures did not reinterpret the story; did not tell readers what to think.

“Telling readers what to think” is the main problem with some of the pieces in this collection, problems inherent in transmogrifying stories by the earlier Indian writers into a genre in which graphics foreground the story—and the graphic artists don’t always understand it or their work is mismatched. Another problem is that often, details are belabored in “dialogue bubbles,” at the cost of the integrity of the story. Yet another is that stories are sometimes “edited down” to what is seen to be the reading level for this kind of anthology. And finally, the stories would have benefited greatly with prefatory material that clearly set each in a historical, geographical, political and biographical context. This last problem, again, although inherent in this genre, stands out most glaringly in what is purported to be a “multicultural” anthology.

In the third edition (1992) of Through Indian Eyes: The Native Experience in Books for Children (Slapin and Seale, eds., New Society Publishers), there’s an essay by Lenore Keeshig-Tobias (Ojibwe), entitled, “Not Just Entertainment.” She writes:

Stories are not just entertainment. Stories are power. They reflect the deepest, the most intimate perceptions, relationships and attitudes of a people. Stories show how a people, a culture, thinks. Such wonderful offerings are seldom reproduced by outsiders.

“Native stories deal with the experiences of our humanity,” she continues, “experiences we laugh, and cry, and sweat for, experiences we learn from.”

Stories are not just for entertainment. We know that. The storyteller and writer have a responsibility—a responsibility to the people, a responsibility for the story and a responsibility to the art. The art in turn then reflects a significant and profound self-understanding. 

To Lenore’s heartfelt comments I would add that adaptors and illustrators of stories—as well as editors of anthologies, if they are honest and really care—also must own up to these responsibilities.

Some of the stories and poems in Native American Classics are incomparably beautiful—some whose texts have been left whole and some that have been adapted. Some of the art in Native American Classics is—to use a descriptor I’ve recently been known to use too often—awesome. Others, not so much.

I can’t, in good conscience, “recommend” or “not recommend” this anthology. Rather, I chose to review each entry as a separate entity. Sorry for the length of this review; it’s the best I could do for the integrity of the stories and poems therein.

Teachers who would want to use Native American Classics to introduce “reluctant readers” to Native literatures should do so with caution.


REVIEWS

“After a Sermon at the Church of Infinite Confusion,” by John E. Smelcer / art by Bahe Whitethorne, Jr. (Diné) (p. 2)

The poem beginning this anthology defies cultural logic and exemplifies incongruence between text and art. Whitethorne’s painting is of a Diné girl on Diné land. Flying into the foreground is a huge black bird, its beak wide open. The bird is larger than the child. Could be a raven, a crow, a blackbird, or maybe even a mockingbird. The painting was originally done for the cover of a children’s book called The Mockingbird’s Manual by Seth Muller (Salina Bookshelf, 2009) and someone must have thought it would be appropriate to illustrate this poem. It isn’t.

The girl’s name, “Mary Caught-in-Between,” is apparently supposed to be ironic. It’s not. It’s insulting. The singular experience of attending “sunday school” is interpreted as turning Mary’s whole world upside down; in reality, it would’ve taken years of Indian residential school to do that. Mary’s spiritual world appears to be inhabited by “Raven and Coyote,” whom she tells they aren’t “gods anymore.” But she’d know that Raven and Coyote never were gods and that you don’t worship tricksters—and you don’t talk to them, either. Mary is dressed in traditional Diné clothing, but children don’t generally dress like that just to hang out. And if she is indeed Diné, I don’t understand why a “totem pole” (on which she thinks that “god” was nailed) would even enter her consciousness. Is that big black bird supposed to be Raven? If so, there are ravens in Diné country, but Raven? No. He’s a Northwest Coast-area trickster. The poem itself is infinitely confusing, and a casual reader will probably think it’s authentic. Not recommended.


“The Soft-Hearted Sioux” (1901) by Zitkala-Sa (Yankton Nakota), adapted by Benjamin Truman, art by Jim McMunn, Timothy Truman and Mark A. Nelson (pp. 4-21)

“The Soft-Hearted Sioux” is a heartbreaking story about what happens when a Christianized Nakota man returns from mission school to proselytize his tribal community. The young man has become a stranger who disrespects his culture and community, his elders and his spiritual leader. It’s a tragic story with a tragic ending. There can be no positive outcome; Zitkala-Sa presents the dilemma and leaves out the moral. This is as it should be.

But it’s clear that the illustrators here do not “get” the subtleties of the story. While Zitkala-Sa’s Christianized narrator describes the community’s spiritual leader—aka “medicine man”—only as “tall and large” with “long strides [that]…seemed to me then as the uncanny gait of eternal death,” the artists portray him as a charlatan, as evil incarnate. He is dark and glowering and inhuman-looking, his head and face almost totally covered with eagle feathers; even his bear-claw necklace and the burning sage bundle he holds appear menacing.

When Zitkala-Sa writes, “seemed to me then,” she means that before the young man entered mission school, he saw the spiritual leader as a person whom he and the rest of the community respected. After the missionaries had finished with the young man, he saw the spiritual leader as someone with “the uncanny gait of eternal death.” Indeed, the medicine man had not changed, the young man had. Although I love “The Soft-Hearted Sioux,” I cannot recommend it in this form.


“On Wolf Mountain” (1904) by Charles Alexander Eastman (Santee), adapted by Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki) / art by Robby McMurtry (p. 22-44)

Told from the perspective of a gray wolf, “On Wolf Mountain”—from Eastman’s Red Hunters and the Animal People (1904)—shows their natural respect for, and complex relationship with, the Indian peoples who hunted large game animals on the plains. As well, it describes the relationship between the wolves and the white settlers (here, sheepherders), who attempted to disrupt the ancient rhythms of life and death, feast and hunger—a dance that existed long before the wagon trains, railroads, and banks got here. “It was altogether different with that hairy-faced man who had lately come among them,” Eastman writes, “to lay waste the forests and tear up the very earth about his dwelling…while his creatures devoured the herbage of the plains.” In one section, an enraged sheepherder whose flock is decimated by the wolves sets out to destroy them. A soldier tells him: “I told you before to lay out all the strychnine you could get hold of. We’ve got to rid this region of the Injuns and gray wolves before civilization will stick!” 

Both Bruchac’s faithful adaptation and McMurtry’s art—on a palette of mostly grays and browns—are right on target. In text and illustration, the wolves are as detailed as the humans, and on every few pages, McMurtry inserts Eastman’s face as the story unfolds. On the final page, McMurtry depicts Eastman telling his story to a group of Boy Scouts, an organization that he co-founded. “On Wolf Mountain” is highly recommended.


“The Red Man’s Rebuke” (1893) by Simon Pokagon (Potawatomi), art by Murv Jacob (Cherokee/Creek) (p.45)

This poem was part of the preface of a small 16-page booklet, a series of short essays printed on birch bark and originally written in 1893 as a political argument and protest against the Columbian Exposition. I can see Pokagon, in my mind’s eye, standing at the entrance of the Exposition, giving away (or selling) his booklet to the startled white people going in to see this celebration of the “discovery of America.” FYI, what follows are a few words from Pokagon’s speech:

In behalf of my people, the American Indians, I hereby declare to you, the pale-faced race that has usurped our lands and homes, that we have no spirit to celebrate with you the great Columbian Fair now being held in this Chicago city, the wonder of the world. No; sooner would we hold the high joy day over the graves of our departed than to celebrate our own funeral, the discovery of America. And while you who are strangers, and you who live here, bring the offering of the handiwork of your own lands and your hearts in admiration rejoice over the beauty and grandeur of this young republic and you say, “Behold the wonders wrought by our children in this foreign land,” do not forget that this success has been at the sacrifice of our homes and a once happy race.

Jacob’s painting of the death march known as the “Trail Where the People Cried,” or more popularly known as the “Trail of Tears,” is amazing. It’s wintertime and you can feel the deathly cold winter as the people lean into the freezing snow and wind. Pokagon’s short poem might have been paired with Jacob’s painting because the Potawatomi had their own “Trail of Death,” as it is known. Yet the Pokagon band of Potawatomi were not marched—they remain in southwestern Michigan—because Pokagon, as a hereditary chief, sold a substantial part of what is now the Chicago waterfront without his people’s permission. As a beginning of a discussion of Pokagon’s life, the Potawatomi people, and/or Manifest Destiny, “The Red Man’s Rebuke” is highly recommended.


“The Cattle Thief” (1914) by E. Pauline Johnson/Tekahionwake, art by Weshoyot Alvitre (Tongva) (pp. 46-53)

“The Cattle Thief,” a long poem, was originally published in Johnson’s anthology, Flint and Feather, in 1914; and is reprinted here in its entirety. An enormously popular performance poet, Johnson toured her native Canada, the US and England, placing her Mohawk name alongside her English name and strongly maintaining her identity as an Aboriginal woman. The Cree woman in “The Cattle Thief” is strong and resolute as she protests the murder of her elderly, starving father, called “cattle thief” by the white riders who have relentlessly hunted him down and now raise their knives to mutilate him. Standing over her father’s body, the woman harangues his killers, daring them to touch him.

And the words outleapt from her shrunken lips in the language of the Cree,
“If you mean to touch that body, you must cut your way through me.”
And that band of cursing settlers dropped backward one by one,
For they knew that an Indian woman roused, was a woman to let alone.

On a palette of mostly browns and blacks, Alvitre’s art effectively captures the bloodthirsty riders, the old man, and most of all, the courageous woman who strikes out against white predation of her people and land. “The Cattle Thief” is highly recommended.


“The Hunter and Medicine Legend” (1881) by Elias Johnson (Tuscarora), adapted by Andrea Grant, art by Toby Cypress (pp. 54-62)

Johnson’s story, in about three pages, is a good read. Children—and adults as well—who read or listen to it will see the action in their minds’ eyes, and will take in the lessons as well. Not so with the adaptation, which is belabored and too “cartoony” for my taste. The adapted text follows the original somewhat, but then veers into extraneous and annoying and hokey “conversation bubbles,” which explain what does not need to be explained. For instance, the text (and adapted text as well) read:

There once lived a man who was a great hunter. His generosity was…praised in all the country, for he not only supplied his own family with food, but distributed game among his friends and neighbors…. He even called the birds and animals of the forest to partake of his abundance.

Then, in the adaptation, the hunter explains to the animals, including two deer, why he is sharing his kill (a deer!) with them: “We are all connected in our life cycles...and so if I take, I will always give back.” Sounds like Tonto explaining something obvious to the Lone Ranger. Read the original. It’s much better. Not recommended.


“The White Man Wants the Indians’ Home” (date unknown; pre-1885) by James Harris Guy (Chickasaw), art by David Kainetakeron Faddon (Mohawk) (p. 63)

Little is known about Guy, other than that he was a member of the police force of the Chickasaw Nation, and that he was killed in a shootout in 1885. This poem was published in Native American Writing in the Southeast: An Anthology, 1875-1935, edited by Daniel F. Littlefield. Fadden’s amazing oil painting—on a bejeweled pallet of mostly sky blues, grass greens and browns—depicts a Mohawk couple against the backdrop of the land. Here are sunbeams breaking through the clouds, a bear in the sky, a deer in the meadow. It all comes together to carry this simple poem that laments the continued depredations of Indian lands. Recommended.


“How the White Race Came to America” (1913) by Handsome Lake (Seneca), as told to Arthur C. Parker (Seneca), adapted by Tom Pomplum / art by Roy Boney, Jr. (Cherokee) (pp.64-71)

Since its founding in the 19th Century, the Code of Handsome Lake has been a source of controversy, political divisions, and pain among the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse). It is known that Handsome Lake was recovering from alcoholism when he experienced his visions. It is also known that Handsome Lake’s mother was not Seneca and so, in this matrilineal society, he may not have been recognized as Seneca. In addition, Handsome Lake’s visions, as passed down in written form by his grandson, have a distinctively Christian influence, and forbid much of what is practiced today by the traditional Longhouse People. And finally, an important part of the controversy is whether or not it was proper to have taken his visions out of the oral tradition in the first place. That part of the Code of Handsome Lake is now produced in graphic format for the amusement of non-Natives belittles the whole thing. Not recommended.


“A Prehistoric Race” (1919) by Bertrand N.O.  Walker/Hen-To (Wyandot), adapted by Tom Pomplun, art by Tara Audibert (Maliseet) (pp. 72-79)

Bertrand N.O. Walker/Hen-To was a wonderful storyteller. In the book from which this story is told, Tales of the Bark Lodges, originally published in 1919, Grandma tells old Wyandot stories to her grandson. In these stories, the Wyandot dialect that Grandma speaks is authentic, understandable, and very, very funny; and when her grandson replies, he speaks relatively “standard” English. Since Grandma’s telling the stories to her grandson, she’s also, of course, speaking the animals’ parts. In this adaptation, Grandma tells the story, yet the animals speak dialect-free English. For instance, in the original story, Ol’ Buffalo tells Ol’ Fox that he wants to challenge Ol’ Turtle to a race. So Ol’ Buffalo says:

My frien’, I got make race with Turtle. You kind a smart, an’ you got sharp eyes, you be the judge, see who beat ‘em. You tell him, Ol’ Turtle, I beat ‘im on a ground’ or in a wata’, jus’ how he like, I don’ care nothin’. You tell ‘im come tomorro’ ova’ there by lake when sun come up jus’ ‘bout high as sycamo’ tree. You tell eva-body an’ he can come see race. I be down tha’, you tell ‘im that, Ol’ Turtle. He’s always best one, eva’ time; but I don’t think he could run, it’s too short his legs. Mebbe so he’s run good in wata’, tho’. Me, too, I could run fas’ in wata’ or anyhow. I bet I could beat ‘im’.

In the adaptation, this is what Ol’ Buffalo says:

I have to race with Turtle. You’re smart, and you’ve got sharp eyes—you be judge, and decide who wins. You tell Turtle I can beat him on land or in water, whichever he choose. Tell him to come tomorrow by the lake when the sun is as high as the sycamore trees. Tell everybody to come and see the race. Ol’ Turtle always says he’s best, but I don’t think he can run fast; his legs are too short. Maybe he’s faster in water, but I’m fast in water, too. I bet I could beat him.

Adapting a story is one thing, but to change the style and language is disrespectful and boring. And it makes Grandma appear to be unintelligent. The art is boring as well. Not recommended.


“I’m Wildcat Bill from Grizzle Hill” (ca. 1894) by Alexander Posey (Muscogee Creek), art by Marty Two Bulls, Sr. (Oglala Lakota) (pp. 80-81)

Alexander Posey was a journalist, essayist, poet and humorist, whose writing tended toward sharp political commentary. “Wildcat Bill,” which Posey wrote around 1894, is a boozing, bragging settler (“a gambler, scalper, born a scout; a tough; the man ye read about”). According to scholar Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., “‘Wildcat Bill’ is Posey’s attempt to imitate the speech of the white people then streaming into Indian Territory.” In this version, Marty Two Bulls makes sure that Wildcat Bill gets his comeuppance—from, of all things, a red-painted cigar-store Indian. Hilarious, and highly recommended.


“The Thunder’s Nest” (1851) by George Copway/Kahgegagahbowh (Mississauga Ojibwe), adapted by Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair (Anishinaabe), art by James Odjick (Anishinaabe) (pp. 82-88)

This story was first published in Copway’s The traditional history and characteristic sketches of the Ojibway nation (1851) and is the story about how the Thunders, beings who wreaked havoc on the Ojibwe people, were subdued by the bravery of a young man. Although the art takes the place of a lot of the written story, it’s a faithful adaptation of Copway’s version. There is no dialogue—for which I am grateful—and the art is spot-on perfect. The Thunders are frightening, the young man is stalwart and the heart he holds in his hands is practically pulsating. Plus—and this is indeed a “plus” in books that illustrate traditional tales—the pipe is right, the clothing is right, the dwellings are right. It’s good to have a talented Anishinaabe artist illustrating an Anishinaabe story.

My only problem with Copway’s written story is that it appears to be a Christianized version of an old story that belies Indian peoples’ traditional respect for all the elements of Creation. Not having heard an oral version, I’m kind of skeptical of this one, and don’t know if I’d recommend it.


“They May Bury the Steel” (1875) by Israel Folsom (Choctaw), art by Larry Vienneau, Jr. (p. 89)

They may bury the steel in the Indian’s breast;
They may lay him low with his sires to rest,
His scattered race from their heritage push,
But his dauntless spirit they cannot crush.

Folsom’s short, evocative poem was originally published in an essay entitled “Choctaw Traditions: Introductory Remarks,” and republished in Native American Writing in the Southeast: An Anthology, 1875-1935, by Daniel F. Littlefield and James W. Parins. I especially like the repetition of the word “they.” We all know who “they” are. Vienneau’s print of a huge raven (or Raven) on a solid blue background, black with blue shining through its outspread wings, beak open, might evoke defiance, but I think the implied equivalence between Indian and Raven is funky. Folsom’s poem is recommended; the art, not so much.


“The Story of Itsikamahidish and the Wild Potato” (1914) by Buffalo Bird Woman (Hidatsa), as told to Gilbert L. Wilson, adapted by Tom Pomplun, art by Pat N. Lewis (pp. 90-95)

This story was found in Wilson’s field notes (vol. 16, #14) and later appeared in Native American Women’s Writing: An Anthology, ca. 1800-1924, edited by Karen L. Kilcup.  According to Hidatsa cosmology, Itsikamahidish is a complex kind of guy who appears in many forms, including as a human; sometimes he appears in the form of Coyote. This is a story about how Itsikamahidish, as Coyote, discovers wild potatoes, who warn him not to eat too much of them. Of course, Coyote being who he is doesn’t listen, and the consequences of eating too many wild potatoes are not lost on the reader. This graphic version is very, well, graphic; Coyote gets his comeuppance and we all know exactly why we shouldn’t eat too many wild potatoes. In Lewis’s illustrations—on a palette of riotous colors—Itsikamahidish looks just like Wile E. Coyote, the talking potato looks like Mister Potato Head, and the circular earth lodges appear accurate. I’m confused, though, about why Itsikamahidish’s sweetheart is an Indian woman, since the Coyote stories I’ve heard take place in the time before humans were created. However, if Itsikamahidish takes many forms, maybe he also dates humans. Recommended.


“Anoska Nimiwina” (1899) by William Jones (Fox), adapted by Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki), art by Afua Richardson (pp. 96-113)

Written about ten years after the event, this is the story of how Anoska Nimiwina, the dance of peace, came through the territory of the Osakie, Shawnee, Delaware, and Kickapoo, and brought an alliance with their enemies, the Comanche, Kiowa, and Caddo. According to Jones, this version of the sacred story of how a young woman brought peace to the warring peoples of the area was brought to the Sauk and Fox by messengers of the Potawatomi. What has been erroneously referred to as the “Ghost Dance” swept through the Plains nations; and it was brought about by the same desperation. The People believed that if they danced and prayed together in this good way, the predatory whites would disappear, the murdered ancestors would return, and the land and game animals would come back.

Richardson’s art, on a gorgeous palette of mostly blues, purples and browns, make a spectacular complement to Bruchac’s amazing adaptation of a story that reverberates even today in the Idle No More movement and a strong, courageous Indian woman. Highly recommended.


“The Stolen White Girl” (1868) by John Rollin Ridge/Cheesquatalawny (Cherokee), art by Daryl Talbot (Choctaw), color by Kevin Atkinson (pp. 114-115)

John Rollin Ridge is a notorious figure in Cherokee history. His father, John Ridge, and grandfather, Major Ridge, as leaders of the “Treaty Party,” were leading signatories of the Treaty of New Echota (1836), which ceded Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi, and was said to have resulted in the death march known as The Trail Where the People Cried, more popularly called “The Trail of Tears.” Years after followers of John Ross—who had led the Cherokee opposition to the treaty—assassinated Ridge’s father and grandfather, Ridge himself killed David Kell, a member of Ross’s faction. Then Ridge fled to California, and went on to become—a writer. A child of mixed parentage, Ross also married a white woman, Elizabeth. “The Stolen White Girl” is probably a romanticized version of their courtship; absent any of this context, the poem and illustrations read like an early version of the “dime novels” and their successors, the “Indian Romance” novels (“Savage Heart,” “Savage Flames,” “Beloved Savage,” you get the picture). Not recommended.


“The Middle-Man” (1909) by Royal Roger Eubanks (Cherokee), adapted by Jon Proudstar (Yaqui, Maya), art by Terry Laban (pp. 116-129)

In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act, also euphemistically known as the “General Allotment Act,” which broke up the vast tribal lands and allotted small portions (about 160 acres) to individual Indian families to farm. The “surplus” lands were then opened up to settlers, and within decades, whites owned the vast majority of the lands. But “most” was not “enough,” and along came the real estate speculators, who, by using the American legal system, bilked Indian individuals of their land allotments. Eubanks, who had pursued careers in teaching and art, became famous for his biting political cartoons and cartoon-illustrated stories, one of which became “The Middle-Man.” Although there is some information on the Dawes Act here (in tiny print at the bottom of three of the ten-page story), it is not enough to carry this adaptation, which will lead readers to believe that Indians were (and are) unintelligent and easily duped. Not recommended.


“Changing Is Not Vanishing” (1916) by Carlos Montezuma/Wassaja (Apache), art by Arigon Starr (Kickapoo) (p. 130)

Carlos Montezuma was a nationally known political leader, writer, essayist and poet, who aimed his political arrows at the white establishment and the BIA for the devastation imposed on Native peoples, and on those who believed the stereotypical portrayal of Indians in the media. Montezuma was not, as the notes here read, “the first Native American to earn a medical degree in an American University.” Actually, Charles Eastman (Santee Dakota) earned his medical degree in the same year, 1889. (Caution: Do your own research and don’t believe everything you read in Wikipedia.)

“Changing Is Not Vanishing” is Montezuma’s answer to those who would believe that changing is vanishing. Arigon Starr’s illustration, of four contemporary traditional and modern Indian people, includes two women, of whom Montezuma’s poem left out. Highly recommended.


“Two Wolves,” by Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki), adapted by Richard Van Camp (Dogrib Dene) / art by John Findley (pp. 131-139)

“Two Wolves” is one of my three hands-down favorites of this collection. (The others are “Anoska Nimiwina,” which Bruchac adapted; and “The Cattle Thief by E. Pauline Johnson.) “Two Wolves” is the story of a young Abenaki, just out of his teens, back from fighting in the Civil War. Hired by the Town Board to hunt down and destroy a wolf who has killed some sheep, Ash has been traumatized by the killing he has had to do in the war. The wolf has been wounded and scarred as well, and the irony is not lost on the young man: “That’s a good one, isn’t it?” he tells the wolf, “an Indian boy getting paid to scalp a wolf?” Ash, after tossing some of his dinner to the wolf (now named “Catcher”), decides he has “done enough killing for all of us,” and tells his new companion of his plans to head north to Canada. In the north, he says, is “land where there’s woods and deer. No sheep, no bounties paid for wolves or men.”

Findley’s art is amazing, realistic and detailed (save the members of the Town Board, who are appropriately caricatured). Especially poignant is Catcher’s sniffing at Ash’s wolf skin-lined bedroll. In the last two panels, the two lie down together, Ash’s head on his bedroll, and Catcher at his side. Or is Ash’s head on Catcher? Both art and story complement each other, a perfect balance, neither competing for domination. With “Two Wolves,” an anti-war story told in an “Indian” way—no “explanation,” no stated moral, no heavy-handed polemic—the reader is left to ponder the issues and explore the possibilities. Beautiful. Highly recommended. 

—Beverly Slapin