Native American Picture Books of Change: Historic Childrens Books
by Rebecca C. Benes
Category: Antiques & Collectibles

This is the story of the children's books of the last century beautifully illustrated by Native American artists. In the era beginning with the 1920s, a quiet revolution was stirring the U.S. federal government's approach to Indian education. Radical for its time, the Bureau of Indian Affairs adopted a policy that brought together writers, ethnologists, linguists, and emerging Indian artists to create and illustrate a literature for Indian students based on Native oral traditions and narratives about Indian life. Native American Picture Books of Change documents four decades of these storybook for Pueblo, Hopi, Navajo, and Sioux children. A body of work largely lost to history with the dismantling of the programs that brought them forth, these classics of Indian art and Indian-centered cultural education are presented collectively for the first time and placed in the context of Native American self-determination. These English and bilingual books showcase many of the important emerging Indian artists of the period, including Andrew Tsinajinnie, Hoke Denetsosie, Velino Herrera, Oscar Howe, Allan Houser, Pablita Velarde, and many other exceptional illustrators and painters. Writers and folklorists include Elizabeth DeHuff, who collected oral folklore for Taytay's Tales, illustrated by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie; and the prolific Ann Nolan Clark, a talented teacher whose lyrical In My Mother's House has remained in print for more than sixty years. Native American Picture Books of Change presents one hundred fifty illustrations drawn from fifty historic children's editions that gave us some of the finest, most inspired picture books ever published.