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Walk Two Moons -Reply
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From: Kathleen Horning <horning>
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 20:04:00 -600
In response to Lois's question about Sharon Creech's background, even though she lives in England, she is an American, born and raised in the United States.
If you are new to the listserv, you may wish to visit the Archives. We had a lively discussion of "Walk Two Moons" back in July, including a discussion about the book's multicultural value. As I recall, it was the consensus of the group on CCBC-Net that "WTM" had been rather unfortunately mislabeled as a book about Native experience. Most who expressed an opinion on this topic stated that they would not categorize "Walk Two Moons" as a multicultural book or as a book about an American Indian girl.
On the other hand, I have heard American Indian literature specialists here in Madison, Wisconsin, (specifically Janice Beaudin and Cathy Caldwell) speak about various aspects common to Native experience, both real and literary. It is not unusual, they say, for Native people to be completely assimilated into our mainstream American culture, with little to no understanding of their own heritage, especially in urban areas. This is the category into which Sal and her family would clearly fall. So in this respect, we could say that "Walk Two Moons" is an accurate reflection of this type of Native experience. It doesn't tell us much about traditional Seneca culture. Nor does it TRY to. I don't know about you but, as a reader, I was greatly relieved that it didn't.
KT Horning, CCBC
UW-Madison
Received on Thu 05 Oct 1995 09:04:00 PM CDT
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 20:04:00 -600
In response to Lois's question about Sharon Creech's background, even though she lives in England, she is an American, born and raised in the United States.
If you are new to the listserv, you may wish to visit the Archives. We had a lively discussion of "Walk Two Moons" back in July, including a discussion about the book's multicultural value. As I recall, it was the consensus of the group on CCBC-Net that "WTM" had been rather unfortunately mislabeled as a book about Native experience. Most who expressed an opinion on this topic stated that they would not categorize "Walk Two Moons" as a multicultural book or as a book about an American Indian girl.
On the other hand, I have heard American Indian literature specialists here in Madison, Wisconsin, (specifically Janice Beaudin and Cathy Caldwell) speak about various aspects common to Native experience, both real and literary. It is not unusual, they say, for Native people to be completely assimilated into our mainstream American culture, with little to no understanding of their own heritage, especially in urban areas. This is the category into which Sal and her family would clearly fall. So in this respect, we could say that "Walk Two Moons" is an accurate reflection of this type of Native experience. It doesn't tell us much about traditional Seneca culture. Nor does it TRY to. I don't know about you but, as a reader, I was greatly relieved that it didn't.
KT Horning, CCBC
UW-Madison
Received on Thu 05 Oct 1995 09:04:00 PM CDT
