Summer Is For Reading! Apple in the Middle

Apple in the Middle, Dawn Quigley's debut novel, is a Young Adult (I'd say young YA or even upper MG) coming of age story whose main character is Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, just like the author.

Publisher's Synopsis:

"Apple Starkington turned her back on her Native American heritage the moment she was called a prairie nigger-a racial slur for someone of white and Indian descendance-not that she really even knows how to be an Indian in the first place. Too bad the white world doesn't accept her either. After her wealthy father gives her the boot one summer, Apple reluctantly agrees to visit her Native American relatives on the Turtle Mountain (North Dakota) Indian Reservation for the first time. It should have been easy, except that she makes all kinds of mistakes as she deals with the culture shock of Indian customs and the Native Michif language, while trying to find a connection to her dead mother. She also has to deal with a vengeful Indian man, Karl, who has a violent, granite-sized chip on his shoulder because he loved her mother in high school but now hates Apple because her mom married a white man. As Apple meets her Indian relatives this summer, she finds that she just may have found a place to belong. One by one, each character-ranging from age five to eighty-five-teaches her, through wit and wisdom, what it means to be a Native person, but also to be a human being while finding her place in the world. Apple shatters Indian stereotypes and learns what it means to find her place in a world divided by color."

Remember those days of junior high (dating myself here, I should say middle school, perhaps) when so many of us felt completely socially inept and were the biggest misfits ever? That's Apple, the main character. Socially awkward kids - no matter their personal race or culture - will welcome reading about someone just as awkward. 

Additionally, Apple's identity struggle is something Native kids (and adults!) will relate to. Identity issues (a result of 500 years of non-Natives telling Natives what they are or aren't, which is in conflict with what Natives really are or aren't) are a big player in Native psyches and have many ramifications, and can be magnified when the person is mixed race or biracial, as is Apple. 

Apple says, "I call it the Ping-Pong effect because you’re the ball, and nobody ever wants you in their space. Have you ever felt like that? Never really belonging anywhere, but trying your darndest to run between two lives only to find you’re always stuck in the middle.”

Yes, Apple, yes, I have felt like that. All my life.

For elementary teachers or parents, although I can't find an official guided reading level on this book, I'd put it at about a T, definitely within the grasp of 4th or 5th grade classroom libraries. You can also use it to follow or teach character development. But its highest use for you will be to read it yourself. It will help inform so many other things you do around Native people for the rest of your teaching career (keeping in mind that there are well over 500 federally recognized tribes in the U.S. and many state-recognized tribes also, and that this is a story from one of those tribes). You will gain insight into some common Native issues as well as learn about the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe through informative sections sprinkled throughout the book. 

As Jean Mendoza points out in her review of Apple in the Middle on American Indians in Children's Literature, there are also several other recent #OwnVoices books that you should read with that same goal of informing your teaching, such as Cynthia Leitich Smith's Hearts Unbroken and the graphic novel series, Pemmican Wars, by Katherena Vermette. 

For middle school or high school teachers or parents, I'd echo the same highest use and further reading, and additionally challenge you to include your learning from this book in your American History and other related Social Studies Essential Standards. I would go into detail, but just now, reading over my state's NC Essential Standards, I am so disgusted at how we are left out that I can't bring myself to list the million ways you could infuse courses with accurate content about Native people. Disclaimer: I'm Native (Sappony), in case you didn't know. But why should that matter or change anything I just said?

We need so many more books like Apple in the Middle. I look forward to Dawn Quigley's next books!

Summer Is For Reading! The Night Diary

The Night Diary (2019) by Veera Hiranandani is the 2019 Newbery Honor Book, as well the winner of a host of other awards, and a masterful piece of art.

In high school, I remember learning about the separation of India and Pakistan, and about Ghandi and his teachings. I remember seeing photographs of trains filled beyond capacity, people on roofs, people hanging out windows, trains packed full of people tighter than sardines, to reach India or Pakistan.

But the human cost of that political decision on the daily lives of millions of people escaped me because it was not taught in History or heaven forbid, in English Language Arts.

Teachers, this #OwnVoices middle grade novel (I'd narrow it down as late middle grade and recommend it for grades 6 - 12) will remedy that situation for your students.

Publisher's summary:

It's 1947, and India, newly independent of British rule, has been separated into two countries: Pakistan and India. The divide has created much tension between Hindus and Muslims, and hundreds of thousands are killed crossing borders

Half-Muslim, half-Hindu twelve-year-old Nisha doesn't know where she belongs, or what her country is anymore. When Papa decides it's too dangerous to stay in what is now Pakistan, Nisha and her family become refugees and embark first by train bu later on foot to reach her new home. The journey is long, difficult, and dangerous, and after losing her mother as a baby, Nisha can't imagine losing her homeland, too. But even if her country has been ripped apart, Nisha still believes in the possibility of putting herself back together. 

Told through Nisha's letters to her mother, The Night Diary is a heartfelt story of one girls' search for home, for her own identity... and for a hopeful future.

The teaching points for history are obvious and I'd definitely recommend history/social studies/world cultures teachers use this book. But I'd also highly recommend it for ELA teachers, and ideally, for ELA and history teachers to coordinate efforts to use this book for instruction.

There is a fabulously detailed, well-thought-out teacher's guide on the publisher's website with complex thinking points and Common Core Standards alignment. Definitely use that.

But what stood out to me as I read it is character analysis. Not just having complex characters to teach students to analyze to meet standards, but characters that will resonate with your students and empower them.

Do you have students that are very hesitant to speak except to one or two other people? It feels like you must slowly draw them out every day to get responses from them? They will be relieved and intrigued to recognize themselves in Nisha.

Do you have students who struggle to read and write? Whose gifts may not be recognized by all? They will understand Amil's struggles and triumphs.

Do you have students who need to begin to understand the personal, human toll of politics? Who need a way to unpack and reframe social justice issues? Who need to learn about daily life, food and customs in other countries? (That would be everybody.)

Do you have students who need to analyze true historical world events in light of today's world events? (Again, everybody.)

"I heard Papa telling Dadi there are riots everywhere and, if we don't leave, we could be killed or taken to a refugee camp. Who would do this? Our neighbors? The kids we went to school with? The merchants at the market? Patients who Papa treated at the hospital? My teacher? Dr. Ahmed? Papa says that everyone is killing one another now, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs. Everyone is to blame. He says that when you separate people into groups, they start to believe that one group is better than another."

Middle school and high school teachers, please buy, or ask your district to buy, this book and use it for instruction. It's a gem.