The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses. Paul Goble. New York: Bradbury Press, 1978. 30 pages. $13.95 (Hardcover). ISBN 0-02-736570-0. Grades PreK-2.My Thoughts…
While I did not hate The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses, I am not sure I can say I liked it. While I appreciate and respect the importance of horses in Native American culture, especially the Navaho and Oglala Sioux mentioned at the end of the story, I found this story lacking and a little odd. The practical importance of horses is introduced on the first page, mentioning how the people needed horses to hunt buffalo. This importance disappeared, however, when the focus shifted to the young lady. Then it tells how she and the horses disappeared. I found it interesting that there was not more alarm at the horses’ disappearance after the storm if they were so integral to survival. Instead of reclaiming their horses when they found them and the girl, they only worried about the girl. I also found the connection between the spotted stallion and the girl a little odd, especially the emphasis on each new colt and visiting. I know my mind should not go where it went, and I am not even going to go there now, but it did. I just felt a little confused. I do love the overall ‘message’ that “Today we are still glad to remember that we have relatives among the Horse People.” I just think it took a little while to get there. I don’t know if I would have enjoyed this story as a young person, but I fear that it is a little boring.
I did see that this book won the Caldecott Medal, however, which is great because the artwork is beautiful. More importantly, however, it is an award winner about a minority culture, which means it will have gotten recognition. This is incredibly important, especially when other cultures were missing from children's literature for quite a while.
Is it better to give children bad information than no information?
ReplyDeleteFrom Debbie Reese's blog, American Indians in Children's Literature:
"The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses, by Paul Goble. Originally published by Simon & Schuster. This won the Caldecott when it came out in 1979. Goble is not Native, but has published a great many books about American Indians. Some---especially his Iktomi stories---have been met with strong objections from Elizabeth Cook-Lyn and Doris Seale. I've got to look into The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses. From everything I can find (online), there is no mention of a tribe. This is a generic "Native American" story. And, on the Scholastic website, on the Discussion Guide, one suggestion is to "Have the class leaf through the book's illustrations to find symbols that they readily associate with Native Americans (e.g., arrows, feathers as hair ornaments, tipis, men with long, braided hair, etc.). Wow! Children can, in fact, associate all those things with "Native Americans"----but if the kids come to think (as many do) that all Indians live in tipis, then, that exercise is a problem, and, it points to the problems with a generic "Native American" story..."