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shaynexb 's review for:
The Indian in the Cupboard
by Lynne Reid Banks
This book, oh man. This was the book I used to read and re-read and re-re-read as a kid. That book that the cliche reader goes through so many times that he wears out the cheap mass-market paperback and has to beg his parents to buy him another copy from the Scholastic book order forms from school ('membah dem?).
Now I get to share it with my daughter, and rediscover how grand an adventure it truly is.
OH! And anyone who hasn't read it, and is scanning down through the reviews to see if it is right for you and/or your children, let me say this: any of the reviewers complaining about racism don't understand the context of racism. "The Indian speaks like a stereotypical Indian!" That's because English is a second, or more likely a fourth or fifth, language for him. His dialog is in a stereotypical Indian voice because that's how YOU are reading it. Little Bull simply doesn't speak English all that well. He's speaking the way anyone would speak broken English, be it a Mexican or Swede or Iroquois or Martian. English is a hard language, man! Back off.
There are a few racial slurs from a cowboy character, and a few casual drops of the term 'Red Indian.' But those are kind of the point. This story shows Little Bull as brave, shrewd, caring, and most of all human. It shows the reader (as it showed me when I was young) that the slurs are from stupidity or fear. It helped me see these words should not define the people they're directed at, but rather the people they issue from.
Wow, went off on a tangent, there, huh? Sorry. Bottom line: this is a beautiful story, full of magic and acceptance and wonder.
Now I get to share it with my daughter, and rediscover how grand an adventure it truly is.
OH! And anyone who hasn't read it, and is scanning down through the reviews to see if it is right for you and/or your children, let me say this: any of the reviewers complaining about racism don't understand the context of racism. "The Indian speaks like a stereotypical Indian!" That's because English is a second, or more likely a fourth or fifth, language for him. His dialog is in a stereotypical Indian voice because that's how YOU are reading it. Little Bull simply doesn't speak English all that well. He's speaking the way anyone would speak broken English, be it a Mexican or Swede or Iroquois or Martian. English is a hard language, man! Back off.
There are a few racial slurs from a cowboy character, and a few casual drops of the term 'Red Indian.' But those are kind of the point. This story shows Little Bull as brave, shrewd, caring, and most of all human. It shows the reader (as it showed me when I was young) that the slurs are from stupidity or fear. It helped me see these words should not define the people they're directed at, but rather the people they issue from.
Wow, went off on a tangent, there, huh? Sorry. Bottom line: this is a beautiful story, full of magic and acceptance and wonder.