From: Betty Tisel <tiselfar>
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 11:58:54 -0600

James Elliot just posted a recommendation of the Mandie series by Lois Gladys Leppard. I just listened in the car to the first Mandie book, "Mandie and the Secret Tunnel", with my seven-year-old daughter. I had to keep stopping the tape to fume about the stereotyping of Indians in this book, and try to explain to my daughter what the stereotypes were, why they probably came into being, and why we don't talk that way anymore.

Although ultimately the indian character of Uncle Ned has some depth, in fact, he really is crucial to Mandie's survival, he is portrayed with so many classic stereotypes that I think the negative outweighs the positive in this book. I can't speak for the rest of the series, but the first book needs some SERIOUS editing. Apparently Leppard wrote this first book at age 11, so that certainly explains some of her worldview, but why didn't her editors intervene?

I was also disturbed by the harsh words of the preacher in the story, but didn't comment as I know that some preachers really do talk that way and it seemed a realistic portrayal. But as my daughter and I listened, I wanted to say, I believe God is loving and forgiving, not mean and vengeful. I now wish I had said something. I wish I had said, "This is not what our pastor would say to a little girl whose father had just died."

But I am glad I was there to tell her that Indians don't really talk like that, and calling children Papoose and women Squaw and men Brave is not really a great idea.

Of course my daughter loved the story, so there you go. The more we listened to the book, the more I thought, "Hey, this is really a Harlequin Romance for little girls." There are a lot of incidents and devices and romance that are very appealing to a certain audience. But I am not going to go out of my way to help my daughter find and read more books in this series.



Betty Tisel Mom, activist Minneapolis, MN
Received on Tue 30 Nov 2004 11:58:54 AM CST