Defending against the war on books by Native authors

Teachers, librarians, authors, and literary advocates are struggling to keep books about Native issues into public classrooms and libraries. That’s because of the increasing momentum by groups intent on removing any references, however vague, that they deem to promote racial diversity. Michigan’s Brandywine School District banned Laurel Goodluck’s children’s book Forever Cousins, an innocuous story about two Native relatives coping with living apart. We’ll get an updated list of banned Native books and what’s being done to get them in the hands of readers.

GUESTS

Debbie Reese (Nambe Pueblo), founder of American Indians in Children’s Literature blog

Laurel Goodluck (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Tsimshian), author

Allison Waukau (Menominee and Navajo), president of the American Indian Library Association

Donald Keeble (Forest County Potawatomi), director of the Forest County Potawatomi Cultural Center