| Native American Picture Books of Change: The Art of Historic Children's Editions is a valuable contribution to the literature about children's picture book publishing. Selecting an overlooked niche of this topic, the author has chosen to focus on a 60-year period of Native content picture books developed by government and mainstream publishing. This coffee table book is a treasure of well-researched commentary combined with outstanding reproduction of 106 colour plates and 44 black and while illustrations created by Native American artists. The author comments on an era of education for Native American children that begins in the 1920's and ends in the present. The 1920's saw an interesting development within the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) when the BIA began to focus on acculturation rather than assimilation. This became clear when a series of picture book readers were developed with the assistance of caring elementary school teachers, writers, linguists, and Native artists. The BIA worked with this group to produce a line of bilingual readers and picture books that were based on Native oral traditions and narratives. With the intent to teach English and the Native languages such as Navajo these books were illustrated by Native artists and occasionally by Native students. One early work that remains in print today is Ann Clark Nolan's, In My Mother's House, illustrated by Velino Shije Herrera. The readers were written and illustrated for children in Hopi, Pueblo, Lakota, and Navajo reservation schools. Authors such as Elizabeth DeHuff, Ruth Underhill, Angel De Cora, D'Arcy McNickle and Ann Nolan Clark wrote the stories that were illustrated by Native artists including Allan Houser (Chiricahua Apache), Fred Kabotie (Hopi), Velino Shije Herrera (Zia), Tonita Lujan (Taos), Harrison Begay (Navajo), Hoke Denetsosie (Navajo), Gerald Nailor (Navajo), Percy Tsisete Sandy (Zuni), Andrew Standing Soldier (Ogallala Sioux), Quincy Tahoma (Navajo), Charles Loloma (Hopi), and Andrew Tsinahjinnie (Navajo). Pablita Velarde of Santa Clara created one of the enduring titles Old Father, The Story Teller in 1960 that remains in print today. Her book heralds a period of self-determination in Native education and literature. Author Rebecca Benes traces this development along with detailed biographical sketches about each writer and artist as well as the publication history of most of the titles. The author celebrates this period of picture book publishing and the unique contribution made by the Native American artists. Librarians, children's literature scholars, art historians, and educators will find this book enlightening and aesthetically pleasing as it takes readers into a time of dramatic change for Native American education. |
