Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Wizard of Oz is so well known among Americans that most can either quote from the book for the movie or both. The movie was shown every year, back before VCRs, and I knew it so well, and sang all the songs. It is such an American story.
But, as this book points out. L. Frank Baum, the author, was a racist. Not only a racist, but someone who believed in genocide of all native people. Although I thought I knew everything there was to know about him, having read him from childhood, the editorials, pointed out in this book, show how much hatred he had for the Indiginous people.
And why is this important? Because, along with Louise’s off-again-on-again love story, there is the story of her brother, Hughie, who is the Tin Woodsmen in the school play, where like the casting of Hamilton, there is no “right” ethnicity for any of the actors. Dorothy is a Black actress. Lousie and Hughie are citizens of the Muskogee (Creek) Nation, just as the author is.
And underlying this, is the racism that boils up in the Kansas town, that a play would have people of color who were usually white.
Louise and her brother have to put up with this hatred, while navigating take usual high school issues.
Louise is working on the school paper, and reporting on these things, but keeping her native heritage a secret from her new boyfriend, because she isn’t sure how he feels about Indiginous people, despite being of Lebanese heriatage.
It is a well written story, with Louise, the narrator, giving a good, natural voice to what is going on around her. And while some parts are serious, there are some funny bits, as Louise tries to explain to her brother how long ago Baum wrote the hateful words about native people.
“About fifty years after the Trail of Tears?”
That didn’t seem to help either.
“Twenty to thirty years before the setting of the first Gal Gabor Wonder Woman movie. Great Granpa Lucas wasn’t born yet, but his parents were alive.”
Good thinking book, where you come away wondering about assumptions.
There is a great line, at the end of the book, which doens’t spoil anything, and I’ll quote here.
”Do Native people believe in Thanksgiving?”
[…] “We believe in gratitude.”
Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.