Fiction Posing as Truth – A critical review of Ann Rinadi’s My Hearth is on the Ground: The Diary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl

The genre, historical fiction, has been enjoying a resurgence.  Besides books, there have been an interest in movies (Victoria and Abdul, The Darkest Hour, Good-By Christopher Robin) as well.  A historical fiction unit is taught to my fifth graders every year.  The beginning of the unit focuses on the traits of historical fiction.  Students are responsible for reading a novel and sharing them with peers during literature circles.  What separates this genre from fiction is that stories take place in the past and usually include significant historical events.  Reading historical novels makes it easy to combine both language arts and social studies.  This is important since many districts and schools are finding it difficult to find time to teach social studies in test prep environments.  More alarming are academic communities that do not find it necessary to teach social studies anymore. 

As I teach this unit, we often research and discuss the historical significance in the book.  When reading quality literature, it never occurs to me that these books are historically inaccurate.  However, many authors are excusing themselves from writing the truth as a way of exercising their “poetic or artistic license.” 

Readers have a right to know how much of these stories are fabricated, especially the historical aspects.  Ann Rinadi has abused the privilege of using her “license” to falsify the events that took place during the 1880s at Carlisle School, an Indian boarding school that deculturalized American Indian children.  Because of Indian resistance, it was less expensive to board children and dispel their Indian ways rather than continuing to fight with adults.  The headmaster of the school, Richard Henry Pratt, famously said, “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man. 

According to the author, Debbie Reese, these young children were taken or even kidnapped from families.  The school was to “break spirits, to destroy traditional extended families and culture, to obliterate memories and languages, and especially to make the children deny their Indianness, inside and out.”  Many of these children died at school or from running away, and the abuse has been well documented.

Ann Rinadi has written many historical fiction children’s books.  My Heart Is on the Ground: TheDiary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl was written by Rinadi for the popular “Dear America” series and was published by Scholastic, a reputable children’s literature firm.  This book, according to Barb Landis, an American Indian research specialist, was an “outrageous depiction of a tragic period in Native American history.”  Most disturbing was how Rinadi found the characters names.  When she visited the Carlisle School, she used the names “that jumped out” at her at the Indian gravesite located on school property.  She states, “I am sure that in whatever Happy Hunting Ground they now reside, they will forgive this artistic license, and even smile upon it.”  Rinadi’s lack of respect for these dead children is an abomination towards the American Indian race.

Additionally, this story is filled with historical errors and displays American Indian stereotypes through language and images found throughout the book.  Moreover, Nannie Little Rose is able to assimilate into the white man’s culture in a period of ten months, highly unlikely based on the true experiences of American Indian Children.

Rinadi does a great disservice to this indigenous group of people that were cruelly taken from their land and stripped of their culture.  Children who read this book will have a false sense of what these schools were like and how the children were treated.  The Diary of Nannie Little Rose is an example of a story told through the lens of white American culture.  Rinadi and other authors have a responsibility for creating historical fictions stories that follow the rules of the genre, especially in children’s literature.  A license is usually a privilege that one works towards to receive.  An “artistic license” should be allowed to those who are respectful to the process.  Research and interviewing those that are experts in the field is necessary.   Mistreating this benefit is unforgivable.  American history must encompass all stories from various races and cultures.  It promotes compassion, humility and the faith to not repeat aberrant periods of our past.