What does it matter? These kids are horrible and don’t treat the former-plastic men like real people and surely my kid is similarly indifferent to everything that’s happening in this book and this is all going over his head and it’s totally okay. At least reading the Cowboy’s dialogue means I’m just sounding stupid when I read every character’s voice. There will be important cultural lessons!ĭammit, they just killed a new plastic Indian–Native American!–and I’m starting to realize this book is too advanced for my 6-year-old… Are we going to have to have a conversation about death? DAMMIT NOW THERE’S A COWBOY, TOO. He knows the culture of his tribe, the Iroquois. It’s getting better! Little Bear demands a longhouse instead of a tepee. I can already tell that this book is really about empathy and learning to respect other human beings and it will ultimately be worth it. Well, these stereotypes are mostly coming from the kid, Omri, not nearly as much from Little Bear (much less guilt-inducing to say than “Indian,”) and Omri is a kid who watched a bunch of Western movies and those movies are absolutely full of racist stereotypes and the kid doesn’t know any better. Maybe it’s time to find a nice documentary on Native Americans instead… I am reading my kids a book full of racist stereotypes. And Little Bear speaks in broken English that makes me feel really uncomfortable when I read it aloud. There’s already been mention of firewater, the Great White Spirit, tepees, and scalping and it’s not even page 30 yet. YES the Indian (I mean Native American, this is going to be constantly awkward, isn’t it?) is finally here!!

Indian in the cupboard series in order