Customer Reviews

My Heart is on the Ground: the Diary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl, Carlisle Indian School, Pennsylvania, 1880

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

This is the worst--the very worst--children's book I have ever read. I cannot say this strongly enough--<My Heart Is On the Ground> is more than just a 20th-century Euro-American colonialist fantasy superimposed on a 12-year-old Lakota child in 1880. By maintaining that atrocities never existed at Carlisle Indian Industrial School (where the stated philosophy was "Kill the Indian and Save the Man"), and putting those assertions in the voice of a Lakota child in a book for children, <My Heart Is On the Ground> is the ripping open of a century-long wound in Indian Country. The pain to the Indian families of the children who died at Carlisle is made even worse by Rinaldi's copying the children's names from the tombstones at the Carlisle cemetery and using those names for her characters, including Nannie Little Rose. If this author had written a fictional diary about, say, Auschwitz, and the protagonist's name was, say, Ann Frank, and in this book the author maintained that nothing bad ever happened at Auschwitz, and in this book Ann Frank was released from Auschwitz and went on to become a teacher, would Scholastic have published it? As Nannie Little Rose says, "Maybe so." This insulting whitewash of one of the worst episodes of American history should be immediately recalled and a public apology issued to the Native American community

As a scholar with 15 years experience in the history of Indian education; and as a native person whose family has been profoundly influenced by my father's childhood in an Indian boarding school (Chilocco Indian Agricultural School in Oklahoma), I am deeply disappointed in this publication. It is depressing that this kind of white fantasy can be passed off as "impeccable and sensitive" native history, in a format that most people cannot distinguish as fiction, because it is so carefully packaged as autobiographical "fact." I am not well grounded in Lakota studies, and will leave those portions of the book that claim to represent Lakota life to others. I would like to comment on the Hopi character, Belle Rain Water, who is highly improbable. Belle draws a "scalping party" for an art class assignment (p. 61). No such thing among Hopis, who are rather renowned pacifists. Why in heaven's name would she pick such a topic, and how would she know what it might look like? Although scalp taking was part of some native societies' military actions (even Hopi, in extraordinary and circumscribed situations) the notion of a "scalping party" is part of white America's fantasy about Indians. In a confrontation between Belle and Nannie (p. 88), Belle calls Nannie a witch. Witchcraft is a dangerous reality in Hopi life, and is taken very seriously. No Hopi would discuss it lightly, or accuse someone face-to-face. The girls go swimming and Belle, swimming nude, taunts their modesty (p. 114). Hopi notions of maidenly modesty in the 19th century did not include girls swimming nude; the whole notion of swimming was problematic for girls for philosophical reasons. Consider the practical problems: where would she have learned? Not at Hopi -- no lakes or swimming pools. On p. 144, Belle tries to make peace with Nannie, and says "we must light the Council Fire." "Council fire" is another white stereotype; it has nothing to do with Hopi cultural or political life. As for Belle's gift to Nannie of a prayer feather -- it is possible Belle might have such a thing at school, and would want to give it to a friend -- but, how could Nannie keep it "in her window"? The staff at Carlisle did not allow native religious belief or practice; why would they have overlooked such a thing? Numerous phrasings in this book reinforce white stereotypes about American Indians. The following examples are self-serving assertions that America's conquest of Indians was inevitable, well-intentioned, and the best thing to happen, all things considered: · The white people are very powerful (p. 7) · "the old ways are done" (p. 24) · Nannie's brother "shames" her by doing a Lakota dance (a "war dance," and done nearly nude, more stereotyping) · "it is as the history teacher said . . . the Sioux people have been conquered" (p. 63) · for the first enrollees at Carlisle, "it was their only chance for a future" (177) Carlisle was not their only chance for a future, as all the non-Carlisle students and their lives attest. The book portrays Indians as backward, defeated victims (and pretty much all as "Plains Indians," who hunted buffalo: p. 175). Legally speaking, the statement on p. 12 attributed to Nannie that the whites "give us" the Black Hills in the Treaty of 1868, is incorrect. Treaties were legal instruments conceived by Europeans to transfer title to lands from one nation to another (among other political uses, such as making a peace). The Treaty of 1868 was a legal instrument by which the Lakota transferred title for ceded lands to the U.S., and reserved or kept the Black Hills. The flash point for many native critics is Rinaldi's use of real children's names taken from Carlisle gravestones: ". . . their personalities came through to me with such force and inspiration, I had to use them. I am sure that in whatever Happy Hunting Ground they now reside, they will forgive this artistic license, and even smile upon it" (p. 196). "Happy Hunting Ground" is an anachronistic, patronizing, stereotypical phrase. Second, the assumption that no living native person needed to be consulted is perfectly clear. Rinaldi is guilty of profound arrogance to assume that dead Indian children would approve of her appropriation of their lives. To conclude -- the focus on Lucy being buried alive. As if it wasn't tough enough to be a student, or to survive being a student at that time. This is "impeccable and sensitive" history? More evidence that the people responsible for this book have not a clue nor care that native people, and descendants of Carlisle students, still live, breathe, and feel. What a shame.

Ann Rinaldi's book MY HEART IS ON THE GROUND takes the troublesome Lucy Pretty Eagle legend and brings it to life in a shockingly disrespectful attempt to entertain youngsters. Rinaldi presents an historical novel that completely misrepresents the boarding school experience of a young Lakota Sioux girl. Several of her characters bear the actual names of children buried in Indian Cemetery of Carlisle, PA. For many years, the U.S. Army War College's tour booklet of the Carlisle Indian School grounds misidentified the old teachers' quarters as student housing and it was believed that girls had roomed there. Known as the Coren Apartments, these former teachers' quarters are still in use as housing for students of the U.S. Army War College. During the Indian School days, 1879-1918, the girls' dormitory occupied the area directly across the yard from the teachers' quarters, where the tennis courts now stand. For several decades, there have been rumors that Lucy Pretty Eagle haunts her former rooms in the Coren Apartments -- when in truth, Indian girls never lived there. Stories of tennis shoes found mysteriously tied together after a restless night, pictures rearranged on the walls, cooking smells wafting from an empty kitchen, and doors opening and closing in the quarters believed to have been Lucy's home over a hundred years ago - still persist. U.S. Army War College students housed in the Coren Apartments within the past several decades insist their quarters are haunted by "Lucy." Lucy Pretty Eagle came to Carlisle with the name of "Take the Tail" (translated from her native Lakota language). In this book, Ann Rinaldi has fashioned her story around a central character, Nannie Little Rose, and her friend, Lucy Pretty Eagle, modeled after a fictitious, romanticised version of Take the Tail. The publication of this book reminds us that not only was Indian identity shaped by non-Indians during the four decades of Carlisle, Indian identity continues to be defined by non-Indian writers today. These Lucy Pretty Eagle stories embody the one-dimensional Indian stereotypes that so influence mainstream ideas about Indian identity. Until their stories are written by Indian people themselves, these stereotypes will persist

This book is rife with historical inacurracies and is highly offensive to anyone who knows the truth about the horrors committed in Indian boarding schools. As a descendent of one of the pupils/inmates of the Carlisle School, where this abysmal book is set, I urge you not to expose any children to this gross misrepresentation of the toture many children endured in an effort to "civilize" Native American peoples.

Reading Rinaldi's book, I was utterly appalled. As an American Indian who is very familiar with the history of the boarding school era, I felt deeply insulted by her fictional "diary" of a Sioux girl. Historical and cultural inaccuracies aside, Rinaldi's book is repulsive in her simple effort to speak for these children. While she hit on some of the characteristics of the schools, one can only study that era as one of oppression, assimilation, and destruction, not as an adventure. Commenting on the actual Carlisle students in the school cemetery from whom she stole identities, Rinaldi states that from "whatever Happy Hunting Ground they now reside, they will forgive this artistic license and smile upon it". That statement shows her insensitivity and lack of common sense or research. For children to read this book "for fun" could be detrimental, and while this is a subject that children should be made aware of, another approach would be advised. For some excellent adult books about boarding school history and legacy, check out Brenda Child's "Boarding School Seasons", Lomawaima's "They Called it Prairie Light", or David Wallace Adams' "Education for Extinction".

It is astonishing that a work perpetuating this level of misinformation and stereotyping against Native Americans would be written and published in 1999, much less touted as a quality addition to the publisher's "Dear America" series. Replete with stereotypical broken English, patronizing attitudes, and offensive cliches, <My Heart Is on the Ground> purports to be the diary of a Lakota boarding school student at the Carlisle Indian school in 1880. Instead, it exploits a tragic period of North American history, which reverberates in the lives of Native people today. Ann Rinaldi's pattern of exploitation and appropriation of Native American voice, names, identities, and histories is among the many problems with this book. The centerpiece of this pattern is Rinaldi's shameless taking of Indian children's names from their gravestones at Carlisle's school cemetery for characters in her "diary." She adds to this act of desecration by imposing her own uninformed voice and colonialist notions on Native lives and cultures. Rinaldi's title <My Heart Is on the Ground> is also appropriated, taken from a Cheyenne proverb, which is removed from its cultural context and misrepresented throughout the book. Furthermore, Rinaldi is guilty of appropriating ideas, scenarios, and/or text from other sources, including a basic publication about the Carlisle Indian school, Richard Henry Pratt's <Battlefield and Classroom: Four Decades with the American Indian, 1867-1904> (edited by Robert M. Utley, originally published by Yale University Press, 1964). Excerpts from this book, which is based on the Carlisle Indian school founder's memoirs, are shown below with comparable passages from Rinaldi to illustrate the pattern of appropriation: "Spotted Tail, you are a remarkable man. Your name has gone all over the United States. It has even gone across the great water." Battlefield and Classroom, 222 "Then Mister Captain Pratt tell Spotted Tail he is re-mark-able man. His name has gone all over Unit-ed States and even across the great waters." Rinaldi, 25 "Captain, thee is undertaking a great work here. Thee will need many things. Thee must remember if thee would receive thee must ask. Will thee take thy pencil and put down some of the things thee needs very much just now and the cost?" Battlefield and Classroom, 235 "Thee is undertaking a great work here. Thee will need many things. If thee would receive, thee must ask. Will thee take thy pencil and put down some of the things thee needs very much and the cost?" Rinaldi, 45 Rinaldi merely rewrites Pratt's text into stereotypical broken English or transparently fictionalizes it, as in substituting words such as "Miss-us" for "Miss." She fails to credit Pratt and other sources for material; instead, the information (re)appears as her own copyright-protected authorship. I recommend that readers relegate this travesty to the mountainous pile of stereotypical publications written about American Indians. Children, the targeted audience of this "diary," deserve better. Outstanding publications about aspects of boarding school life are available, including works by Francis La Flesche, Luther Standing Bear, Basil Johnston, Polingaysi Qoyawayma, Brenda Child, and K. Tsianina Lomawaima. Furthermore, if in doubt about the American Indian stereotypes pervading Rinaldi's book, choose selections from the extensive literature available on racism and stereotyping.

The author has done a great disservice to all First Nation people as she has taken children's names from a grave yard and basically "spun yarns" about their lives. I have talked first hand with people from the Blackfoot Nation and they talked about what happened to their parents in boarding schools. It was not the "sugar coating" that Ms. Rinaldi speaks of at all. Many of the problems that First Nation people have may be traced back to forcing children to attend boarding school, such as poor parenting skills, by not having any examples of parents to follow while growing up.

The White people treated the First Nation people with disrespect toward their culture, language, religion, and music. You could say history repeated itself with how the Whites treated all others different than themselves.

When you read this book, make sure that you take this into account.

The boarding school system this book is about was one of the darkest, ugliest moments in the history of US/American Indian relations. Rinaldi's work glosses over this in the worst ways. Native Americans across the US and Canada are aware of this book. In 2000, a Kickapoo singer wrote and recorded a song based on the criticism of the book. To hear the song and read the lyrics, go to her website. Her name is Arigon Starr and click on Audio/Lyrics. The song is listed there. A critical review of the book was published at the Oyate website, and in leading educator's journals such as Multicultural Review, Multicultural Literature, and Rethinking Schools.

I'm a four-teen year old who really disliked this book because alot of things are just made up. On page 32, Nannie's mother asks, "What will you learn? To be more silly than you are?" Lakota Children where treated with alot more respect then that. Then another thing when Belle Rain Water gave Nannie a prayer stick, A hopi child wouldn't give a Lakota child a prayer stick! Sacred objects like these were/are not things children have or share. Just one of Ann Rinaldi made up things. And alot more botherd me while I read the rest of the book.

The author of, My Heart is on the Ground, has confused her cultural beliefs and values with the Lakota people's. She needs to do more research and show the true ways of the Lakota & not her vague perception of a tragic time for many Native American children.