Thanks to the Animals

When the Born to Read program selected books for its anti-bias initiative, Many Eyes, Many Voices, there was a distressing gap in the field of contenders: a suitable children’s book about Maine Native Americans. The few titles available were either too stereotypical or too distant—tales populated by warriors with headresses, or set amidst Plains buffalo or Southwest deserts. That changed in 2005, when Tilbury House publishers in Gardiner, Maine, published Thanks to the Animals by Passamaquoddy storyteller Allen Sockabasin. Born to Read Program Officer Brita Zitin sat down with Sockabasin and his editor, Audrey Maynard, to talk about the story behind this important book.

To learn more about Sockabasin, see this newsletter article. To leave your feedback on this podcast, add a comment to this blog post. Thanks for listening.