When I was a child, there really were no books about Native Americans or American Indians – you know, either term is okay – that were available. There was just nothing. There were historical books. There were books that talked about culture in terms of books written by anthropologists. And there were some books like oh say Two Little Savages where you had white kids playing Indian.
But as far as something that really reflected Native reality, I couldn’t find anything. Maybe it was that lack of those books that spurred me on to write the books I would later write.