readingthroughtheages's review
5.0
This book must be on your TBR. This is what we need - books written by #OwnVoices that gives authenticity and actual understanding to all voices.
This story is based loosely on the life of the author. She has crafted pieces of her own history into this beautiful and often heartwrenching story about a Native American family whose tribe was terminated and relocated by the American government. This story takes place when the family must leave their reservation located in Oregon and relocate and integrate into the 1960s era of Los Angeles. "Indian no more" and now the family must become "Americans"... a strange concept to kids who are just beginning to understand their own identity.
This story is based loosely on the life of the author. She has crafted pieces of her own history into this beautiful and often heartwrenching story about a Native American family whose tribe was terminated and relocated by the American government. This story takes place when the family must leave their reservation located in Oregon and relocate and integrate into the 1960s era of Los Angeles. "Indian no more" and now the family must become "Americans"... a strange concept to kids who are just beginning to understand their own identity.
teacher2library's review
5.0
"All you experienced, whether won or lost, was yours."
What's in a name? How much power do words have? When the federal government decides to disband her Umpqua tribe and her father signs up for the Indian Relocation program, Regina soon finds out.
Would give 10 stars to this story if I could.
What's in a name? How much power do words have? When the federal government decides to disband her Umpqua tribe and her father signs up for the Indian Relocation program, Regina soon finds out.
Would give 10 stars to this story if I could.
yapha's review
4.0
The only life Regina Petit has ever known is growing up on the Grand Ronde reservation in Oregon. But when the US Government dissolves the rights of her Umpqua nation in the mid-1950s, she and her family move down to Los Angeles. They leave behind the comforts of home and their extended family while her father attends engineering school. Suddenly she is in a very diverse community, making friends with her African American and Cuban neighbors. She faces racism for the first time, as well as being told what she needs to do to be a "real Indian." It is tough for a 5th grader to figure out how to balance how the outside world sees her with what she knows to be true of her family and her history. Highly recommended for grades 4 & up. Does include two uses of the N word. Based on the author's real life story, includes a glossary and further information.
eARC provided by publisher via Edelweiss
eARC provided by publisher via Edelweiss
torifaye's review
5.0
Reading the author and editor note makes this book even more necessary to read. I can’t recommend this book enough!!!!
ssloeffler's review
4.0
Like the boarding schools travesty, there are far too few people who know the history of termination of indigenous tribes by the U.S. Government. This book is an age-appropriate story of that era and its effects.
meaganmart's review
3.0
I found this novel to be educational and enjoyable. I had no idea that the federal government had terminated Native American tribes in the 50s in order to strip their funding, and their land and rob them of their cultural heritage. It is incredibly distressing to see the way that the federal government has continued to treat those of Native American descent, even in our not-so-distant past.
When 8-year-old Regina Petit's tribe is federally terminated, she feels lost. The reservation is the only home she has ever known, her cousins her only playmates. Now, her father wants to take advantage of funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and resettle the family in a city that can provide more opportunity and more room for growth. The Petits land in Los Angeles and the learning curve is steep for the entire family as they try to adjust to a radically different way of life than they have ever known. Regina makes new friends, builds a new community, and wrestles with her self-identity as she struggles to understand what it means to be Native American in a community whose only knowledge of Native Americans comes from racist and backward depictions on television.
I would have rated this novel 4 stars, but one of the characters is physically assaulted when her father comes home and cuts all of her hair off in a drunken rage to make her "American" and "no longer an Indian." If this had been done by someone on the street it would have been prosecuted as a hate crime. But the author simply glosses over the incident. There is no apology from the father, no discussion with another adult to talk about how wrong his actions were, and no consequences of the action at all. I take issue with the message this sends to the middle grades audience the book is intended for.
When 8-year-old Regina Petit's tribe is federally terminated, she feels lost. The reservation is the only home she has ever known, her cousins her only playmates. Now, her father wants to take advantage of funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and resettle the family in a city that can provide more opportunity and more room for growth. The Petits land in Los Angeles and the learning curve is steep for the entire family as they try to adjust to a radically different way of life than they have ever known. Regina makes new friends, builds a new community, and wrestles with her self-identity as she struggles to understand what it means to be Native American in a community whose only knowledge of Native Americans comes from racist and backward depictions on television.
I would have rated this novel 4 stars, but one of the characters is physically assaulted when her father comes home and cuts all of her hair off in a drunken rage to make her "American" and "no longer an Indian." If this had been done by someone on the street it would have been prosecuted as a hate crime. But the author simply glosses over the incident. There is no apology from the father, no discussion with another adult to talk about how wrong his actions were, and no consequences of the action at all. I take issue with the message this sends to the middle grades audience the book is intended for.
krismarley's review
4.0
Indian No More has recently appeared on some challenged book lists. huh? I get it but I don't get it.
the_fabric_of_words's review
5.0
This is a short but powerful historical fiction read that shows how one 10-year-old was impacted when her tribe, the Umpqua, was terminated by the US in 1954 and struggled when relocated to Los Angeles.
Regina Petit's family lived in the Grand Ronde Tribe's reservation until they were declared "Indian no more" and terminated. Overnight, they're forced to relocate to Los Angeles. Her father enters electrical engineering classes, a government "Indian Agent" leads them to a ramshackle house on 58th street, and it breaks her mother and grandmother's hearts.
But Regina's resilient and goes to school with her little sister, making friends in the new neighborhood, but with them also experiences the vicious racism of the era and the crushed hopes and dreams of the adults in her family.
I won't spoil how it ends, but pull up a box of tissues.
Teaching Note
Although the writing is a bit below grade-level for 7th/8th grades, the book would make an excellent, quick in-class read to explore this key aspect of the 1950s Civil Rights era.
The book itself features several excellent teaching materials. There's an Umpqua Glossary at the beginning of the book, with the terms that are used in the pages. The 7-page Dictionary at the back lists many in Spanish words used in the book, as well. There's an Author's Note with excellent pictures of her family's house in LA, friends, family and more, that formed the basis for the book.
The publisher, Lee & Low, also offers a free teaching guide for this book that is 20 pages and excellent. It's correlated to 6th grade ELA standards, but would make for a quick, impactful read for Civil Rights Common Core standards in 7th/ 8th grades as well.
The Teacher's Guide features a synopsis, a primer on the use of the term "Indian" which goes into more detail than the definitions at the back of the book, and offers additional resources for students and teachers to utilize.
The guide also features a short, but much-needed to help build prior knowledge for your readers, timeline of Native American Historical Periods, and focuses on the Termination and Indian Relocation Act, as well as documenting how several Presidential administrations treated Native Nations (Eisenhower, who started the Termination era, Johnson, who started the era of Indian self-determination, Nixon, and finally Reagan, who repudiated the Terminations with PL 98-365), with links to three key Presidential speeches.
In addition, there are 10 pre-reading questions for students, a primer for teachers on the use of the "N" word in the book as a racial slur (you should prepare your students for it, prior to reading, by at the very least having a discussion about it why we don't use it, ever, but why it's included in the book), and a guide to the images contained in the cover and the map at the beginning.
There are 13 over-arching questions to guide students as they read, "Setting a Purpose for Reading," content specific and academic vocabulary terms are pulled out (although not defined), and 77 reading comprehension questions. There are 9 Extension Questions and 5 Reading Response questions, for analysis after reading, and 6 ELL activities and 3 Social and Emotional Learning standard activities.
The teaching guide also offers activities that hit standards in Geography, Art / Media, and making School-Home connections.
There is also a "teaching ideas" post by Professor MaryAnn Cappiello for School Library Journal's "The Classroom Bookshelf" blog. The post contains additional resources / links / questions to consider, but you'll need to generate your own lesson plans, correlate them to standards and incorporate them into a novel study to complement the publisher's Teaching Guide.
Visit my blog for more great middle grade book recommendations, free teaching materials and fiction writing tips: https://amb.mystrikingly.com/
Regina Petit's family lived in the Grand Ronde Tribe's reservation until they were declared "Indian no more" and terminated. Overnight, they're forced to relocate to Los Angeles. Her father enters electrical engineering classes, a government "Indian Agent" leads them to a ramshackle house on 58th street, and it breaks her mother and grandmother's hearts.
But Regina's resilient and goes to school with her little sister, making friends in the new neighborhood, but with them also experiences the vicious racism of the era and the crushed hopes and dreams of the adults in her family.
I won't spoil how it ends, but pull up a box of tissues.
Teaching Note
Although the writing is a bit below grade-level for 7th/8th grades, the book would make an excellent, quick in-class read to explore this key aspect of the 1950s Civil Rights era.
The book itself features several excellent teaching materials. There's an Umpqua Glossary at the beginning of the book, with the terms that are used in the pages. The 7-page Dictionary at the back lists many in Spanish words used in the book, as well. There's an Author's Note with excellent pictures of her family's house in LA, friends, family and more, that formed the basis for the book.
The publisher, Lee & Low, also offers a free teaching guide for this book that is 20 pages and excellent. It's correlated to 6th grade ELA standards, but would make for a quick, impactful read for Civil Rights Common Core standards in 7th/ 8th grades as well.
The Teacher's Guide features a synopsis, a primer on the use of the term "Indian" which goes into more detail than the definitions at the back of the book, and offers additional resources for students and teachers to utilize.
The guide also features a short, but much-needed to help build prior knowledge for your readers, timeline of Native American Historical Periods, and focuses on the Termination and Indian Relocation Act, as well as documenting how several Presidential administrations treated Native Nations (Eisenhower, who started the Termination era, Johnson, who started the era of Indian self-determination, Nixon, and finally Reagan, who repudiated the Terminations with PL 98-365), with links to three key Presidential speeches.
In addition, there are 10 pre-reading questions for students, a primer for teachers on the use of the "N" word in the book as a racial slur (you should prepare your students for it, prior to reading, by at the very least having a discussion about it why we don't use it, ever, but why it's included in the book), and a guide to the images contained in the cover and the map at the beginning.
There are 13 over-arching questions to guide students as they read, "Setting a Purpose for Reading," content specific and academic vocabulary terms are pulled out (although not defined), and 77 reading comprehension questions. There are 9 Extension Questions and 5 Reading Response questions, for analysis after reading, and 6 ELL activities and 3 Social and Emotional Learning standard activities.
The teaching guide also offers activities that hit standards in Geography, Art / Media, and making School-Home connections.
There is also a "teaching ideas" post by Professor MaryAnn Cappiello for School Library Journal's "The Classroom Bookshelf" blog. The post contains additional resources / links / questions to consider, but you'll need to generate your own lesson plans, correlate them to standards and incorporate them into a novel study to complement the publisher's Teaching Guide.
Visit my blog for more great middle grade book recommendations, free teaching materials and fiction writing tips: https://amb.mystrikingly.com/
mslibrarynerd's review
4.0
Story gives a lot of perspective about the hurt and nonsense of stereotypes. Realistic humans with conflicting feelings and responses.
cynthiaelyseeh's review
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5