Episode 66 - Arrow to the Sun

Let's see. After Tikki Tikki Tembo and Little Black Sambo, it seems like Arrow to the Sun is the natural complement to those two, don't you think? Kate and Betsy haven't dug deep into a book with racist issues in a while, and they've never done any books where white folks told the stories of American Indians. In this post-Thanksgiving episode the sisters give as much of the history of this book as possible, all thanks to the work of K.T. Horning and Debbie Reese. Meanwhile, Kate gets confused about the actual storytelling itself, and Betsy cannot get over how a book from 1974 looks this much like a video game. Show Notes: - Behold and marvel at the lack of information on the Wikipedia entry for this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_to_the_Sun - K.T. Horning's Horn Book article Arrow to the Sun and Critical Controversies is a piece Betsy cribbed (read: stole) from heavily for this podcast episode: https://www.hbook.com/2013/09/choosing-books/horn-book-magazine/arrow-to-the-sun-and-critical-controversies/ - Pitfall came out in 1982, by the way. - For the record, the song "Cat's in the Cradle" came out in 1974. The same year as this book. Coincidence?!? - There are two articles on Arrow to the Sun on the blog American Indians in Children's Literature. The first dates back to 2006: https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2006/10/gerald-mcdermotts-arrow-to-sun-gerald.html - The second from 2009 looks at the book's discussion guide: https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2009/04/scholastic-guide-to-arrow-to-sun.html - Ten years later that discussion guide is still going strong on the Scholastic site: http://www.scholastic.com/browse/collateral.jsp?id=32388 - This would be the "book" sequence in Hocus Pocus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKNm3KVDq28 - Go here to see The Neon Museum of Las Vegas: https://www.neonmuseum.org/ - For the full Show Notes please visit: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2018/11/26/fuse-8-n-kate-arrow-to-the-sun-by-gerald-mcdermott