Showing posts with label Ten Little Rabbits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ten Little Rabbits. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Instead of Virginia Grossman's TEN LITTLE RABBITS, read Michael Kusugak's MY ARCTIC 1, 2, 3





[Note: This review is used with permission of Beverly Slapin and may not be published elsewhere without her written permission.]

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Grossman, Virginia, Ten Little Rabbits, illustrated by Sylvia Long. San Francisco: Chronicle Books (1991). Unpaginated color illustrations; preschool-grade 1 

Kusugak, Michael (Inuit), My Arctic, 1, 2, 3, illustrated by Vladyana Krykorka. Toronto: Annick Press (1996). Unpaginated, color illustrations; preschool-up; Inuit

Although both of these are counting books, they are very different from one another.  Ten Little Rabbits has received several awards. It has been favorably reviewed in all of the major journals, can be found in most bookstores, and is featured on many “multicultural” lists and in catalogs. Long’s earth-toned ink-and-watercolor pictures are pretty and her rabbits look like rabbits. 

But it shouldn’t be necessary to tell people that counting rabbits dressed as Indians is no different from counting Indians. It objectifies people. Same faces, different blankets. As Teresa L. McCarty writes, 

The book’s implicit suggestion that children will learn to “count by diminutive-ethnic-group characters” is perverse and patently racist. That the author and the illustrator appear completely unconscious of this and choose to portray their characters as “cute” little animals reveals an especially insidious and societally acceptable form of racism. It is difficult to believe any writer, illustrator, or publisher today would accept or promote equivalent portrayals, for instance, of American Jews or African Americans. [1]

There are some who would ask, “but are the pictures authentic?” They’re neither authentic nor accurate. There’s no cultural relevance, no connection between each illustration and a people’s way of being in world. Even if the pictures were not contrived, the impact of this book—“rabbits as Indians”—on impressionable little kids is what makes it toxic. 

Neither Long’s lifelong “fascination with Native American cultures” nor her reading of Watership Down, which together “inspired a series of Native American rabbit illustrations that later became the basis for this book" [2] excuses what she and Grossman have done. On the other hand, My Arctic 1, 2, 3 is an example of a counting book that simply and beautifully reflects a people’s connection to the land. “I grew up in the Arctic Circle,” Michael Kusugak writes.
When I was a little boy we hunted seals, caribou and whales….We do not hunt animals all the time. Mostly, we watch them. We look at their tracks. We see how their coats change with the seasons. We watch what they hunt for food. We see how they hunt. In this book I want to show you some of the animals we have watched and the other animals that they hunt. Watching animals is fun.

My Arctic 1, 2, 3 is clearly more than a counting book. Unlike Ten Little Rabbits, it shows the relationships between the humans and the animals and between the different animals in an environment that demands that this relationship be understood. Each two-page spread, in luminous watercolors and ink, shows a certain number of animals on the left, and the animals they hunt on the right. The story comes full circle at the last spread that shows, on the left, Kusugak’s extended family picking “millions of berries (that) ripen in the fall” and on the right,
One lone polar bear walks along the shore, thinking of seals. It sees the berry pickers and says, “Never mind. They do not look like very good meals.” It continues on its journey, looking for what it might find…

There are words in Inuktitut for the animals themselves, and the last four pages, “The Arctic World of Michael Kusugak and His Family,” place all of the Arctic animals in the context of their relationship to the humans and each other. From start to finish, this is a beautiful book.
—Beverly Slapin


[1] Theresa L. McCarty, “What’s Wrong with Ten Little Rabbits?,” The New Advocate, vol. 8, no. 2, 1995, p. 98.
[2] from the Endnote.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

A Teacher Reconsiders Virginia Grossman's TEN LITTLE RABBITS

"The Miss Rumphius Effect" is a blog maintained by a teacher named Tricia. Yesterday (July 16th), she wrote about Virginia Grossman's Ten Little Rabbits, which is a picture/counting book that features ten little rabbits. She writes about why she no longer uses it with children. Her post is titled "Reconsidering Ten Little Rabbits: Evaluating Books from the Viewpoint of Other Cultures."

The strength of what she says lies in her ability to reconsider the book once she had new information about it, and then, to stop using it. I've certainly had that experience many times.

I remember--vividly--reconsidering The Five Chinese Brothers when I began graduate study at UIUC in 1994. I grew up on our reservation (Nambe) in New Mexico, attending a US government day school in first grade. The librarian from the local public school would drive over to our school every two weeks with a cardboard box filled with books. The fourteen (or so) of us Pueblo kids would choose books from his box. That box of books was our library. [As I write this, I can cynically imagine an author reading my blog and thinking "hmmm... that would make a good story." I hope nobody tries to turn my story into a book or a passage in a book. I can imagine the ways the story would be done wrong, as the author filled in gaps with his/her (likely) faulty knowledge of my life as a kid on our reservation.]

Two books stand out from that time. One is Little Owl Indian. I will write about that one another day.

The second is The Five Chinese Brothers. It carries enormous significance for me---a kid learning to read, and loving that books could take me to other places and times. In graduate school, I gained new information about it, and I let it go. I took it off its pedestal, and now use it in my classes to describe that process... That process of letting go of something with emotional significance. It isn't a bad thing to do, or a sign of weakness. It is called learning.


Update: July 18, 2007
The Spring 2007 issue of Journal of Children's Literature, published by the Children's Literature Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English includes a column called "A Dozen Great Books." On the list is The Five Chinese Brothers, of which the columnist says "Five brothers who look exactly alike use their special powers to save First Brother from being unfairly punished."

In the intro, the columnist says "...I longed to retitle this column 'A Dozen Great Books That Tickled My Imagination, Delighted My Sense of Humor, Taught Me The Power of Language, Encouraged Me To Listen To My Own Stories, Allowed Me To Glimpse The Vast and Varied Word Beyond the Cornfields of Illinois Where I Was Growing Up, Encouraged Me To Go Within Myself And Listen To My Own Stories, Comforted Me, And Basically Changed My Life.'" She also says she came to know the book through Captain Kangaroo's television program.


Below is what I said last August about Ten Little Rabbits, in a post about a book called Brave Bunny. I hope you read what I wrote and also what Tricia has to say at "Reconsidering Ten Little Rabbits: Evaluating Books from the Viewpoint of Other Cultures." The tribes represented (or rather, misrepresented) in Ten Little Rabbits are Sioux, Tewa, Ute, Menominee, Blackfoot, Hopi, Arapaho, Nez Perce, Kwakiutl, Navajo.

---

Bunnies appear frequently in children's books, and there is at least one very popular book that features bunnies dressing up like Indians. Ten Little Rabbits by Virginia Grossman came out in 1991. The illustrations (by Sylvia Long) are attractive. No doubt, some view the title as a clever take-off on "Ten Little Indians" which many children still sing in their pre-school classrooms.

It is a counting book, so (by definition), each page features a numeral and objects to count. In this case, the objects for counting are rabbits dressed in the regalia of a specific tribal nation. I urge readers---especially Native ones---to take a look at the book. Is your tribe represented? Is it correctly represented?

There is a page intended to show Pueblo Indians. On that page, two male rabbits are shown dancing in Pueblo-like attire, standing in front of an adobe wall. But! They are shown facing each other, and there are only two of them (this is the page for the numeral two). There are no dances at Nambe (my home) that are done that way.

At the end of the book is a double-page spread (two pages facing each other) that have "information" about each tribe depicted in the book. I deliberately put "information" in quotation marks, because the "information" about Pueblo people is wrong. Grossman says that we "stage" a dance in which the male dancers "leap and stamp to wake up the spirits."

Sadly, this "information" makes the book more attractive to parents and teachers who are trying to bring accurate and authentic books to the classroom. I'm sure that Grossman and Long didn't intend to dupe their readers, but I think they've done all children a disservice. Once again, Native people are objectified (one little, two little....), and these gorgeous illustrations and "information" add to the already too-big pile of hooey that passes for knowledge about American Indians.

Next time you're in your local library, see if Ten Little Rabbits is on the shelf. If you're willing, approach the librarian, and point out problems with the book. It has FACTUAL errors. In my view, it should be weeded (pulled off the shelf and taken out of circulation).

If you're interested in reading more about Ten Little Rabbits, see Theresa L. McCarty's article "What's Wrong with Ten Little Rabbits?" published in 1995 in a journal called The New Advocate (volume 8, #2, page 98).

UPDATE, MARCH 26, 2009:
See also the review by Lisa Mitten and Naomi Caldwell Wood, of the American Indian Library Association.

Monday, August 14, 2006

INDIAN BUNNY. No! Now it is BRAVE BUNNY --- And TEN LITTLE RABBITS

A reader (Amanda) wrote to me about Indian Bunny, a picture book she found in her local public library. In the story, a bunny decides he wants to be an Indian. According to the Library of Congress catalog, Indian Bunny (written and illustrated by Ruth Bornstein) was first published in 1973 by Childrens Press. But, as Amanda found out, it was republished in 2003 with a new title. It went from Indian Bunny to Brave Bunny. Why the change from "Indian" to "Brave"?!

Other than the title, it is the same book. At the Amazon site, you can get the older one in a used copy. There are three reviews which say in part:
"Despite what some would consider a politically incorect titile, INDIAN BUNNY is a sweet story that young chilren enjoy and instills in them a small amount of respect for cultures other than their own."
and
"A very pro-native American (and pro-Pagan) introduction for the very young. "
and
"This was my first and favorite book in the world! It is a simply written and illustrated tale of a bunny who decides, one day, that he wishes to be an Indian. His story unfolds accordingly, along the banks of streams, and in fields and trees where he meets and befriends sacred animals and practices the ancient ways. The beauty of the story is its simplicity and profound sense of respect and mystery. It is a gentle spiritual quest suitable for even the youngest children or early readers. I still love it!"

Of course, bunnies appear frequently in children's books, and there is at least one very popular book that features bunnies dressing up like Indians. Ten Little Rabbits by Virginia Grossman came out in 1991. The illustrations (by Sylvia Long) are attractive. No doubt, some view the title as a clever take-off on "Ten Little Indians" which many children still sing in their pre-school classrooms.

It is a counting book, so (by definition), each page features a numeral and objects to count. In this case, the objects for counting are rabbits dressed in the regalia (note I did not say 'costume')* of a specific tribal nation. I urge readers---especially Native ones---to take a look at the book. Is your tribe represented? Is it correctly represented?

As some of you may know, I am Pueblo Indian, tribally enrolled at Nambe Pueblo in New Mexico. In Ten Little Rabbits, there is a page intended to show Pueblo Indians. On that page, two male rabbits are shown dancing in Pueblo-like attire, standing in front of an adobe wall. But! They are shown facing each other, and there are only two of them (this is the page for the numeral two). There are no dances at Nambe that are done that way.

At the end of the book is a double-page spread (two pages facing each other) that have "information" about each tribe depicted in the book. I deliberately put "information" in quotation marks, because the "information" about Pueblo people is wrong. Grossman says that we "stage" a dance in which the male dancers "leap and stamp to wake up the spirits."

Sadly, this "information" makes the book more attractive to parents and teachers who are trying to bring accurate and authentic books to the classroom. I'm sure that Grossman and Long didn't intend to dupe their readers, but I think they've done all children a disservice. Once again, Native people are objectified (one little, two little....), and these gorgeous illustrations and "information" add to the already too-big pile of hooey that passes for knowledge about American Indians.

Next time you're in your local library, see if Ten Little Rabbits is on the shelf. If you're willing, approach the librarian, and point out problems with the book. It has FACTUAL errors. In my view, it should be weeded (pulled off the shelf and taken out of circulation).

If you're interested in reading more about Ten Little Rabbits, see Theresa L. McCarty's article "What's Wrong with Ten Little Rabbits?" published in 1995 in a journal called The New Advocate (volume 8, #2, page 98).