When teachers and librarians are choosing books with Native stories or native themes or Native tales, there are a number of things they should do. One, they consider who the author is. What is the author’s legitimate connection to this material? See what is cited in the book. What are the sources for this material? And sometimes they can turn to guides such as Through Indian Eyes, a book by Doris Seale and Beverly Slapin or A Broken Flute by the same two authors, which are surveys of children’s literature books by and about Native Americans.
I think that you owe it to yourself and to your school to be as informed as possible. And you owe it also I think to the community of humanity in general to see American Indian literature and stories not as separate, not as a little category to put off in a corner, but as something that’s part of the body of world literature that should be inclusive and that we as human beings have so many things in common, we’re part of the same circle, but every point on the circle is unique. And therefore, we need to recognize the uniqueness of the perspective from that point on that deeply connected circle.
