hi I'm Heather Marie montia and you are watching PBS books thank you for joining us in November PBS books launched a formal partnership with the American Indian Library Association today's collaborative program represents our first Children's Program as we speak with Trailblazer and New York Times best-selling author Cynthia litic Smith Sisters of the never see and editor of ancestors approved intertribal stories for kids following the conversation today there will be an opportunity for questions from the audience on Facebook and YouTube Before We Begin you know I always like to thank our library Partners 1,800 strong across the country as well as numerous PBS stations who bring this important content to their communities but most importantly I'd like to thank you today for being here and joining us now the moment you've been waiting for it is my extraordinary pleasure to introduce Cynthia litic Smith she is a 2021 NSK newat Laurette and as you've heard the New York Times best-selling author of numerous books for young readers including Hearts unbroken which won the American Indian Library association's youth literature award her 2020 releases both middle grade books which we're here to discuss today received 10 Stars review both books were named best books of the year and they were on multiple lists she looks forward to the spring of 2023 when she will release blue stars the vice principal problem number one in the blue star series Cynthia is also the author and curator of heart drum a native focused imprint of Harper Collins children's books and she serves as uh the Katherine Patterson inaugural endowed shair on faculty for the MFA program in writing for children and young adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts Cynthia is a citizen of the Mogi nation and lives in Austin Texas welcome Cynthia thank you and hello I'm delighted to be here we're so honored to have you thank you to moderate and guide today's conversation it is my pleasure to have Senator Mary Kunes she was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2016 and elected to their Senate in 2020 she is the first woman of native descent to be elected to the Minnesota senate senate as an educator she retired from her role as a public school library specialist after 25 years of service she recognized that students want to read and hear about kids that have common life experiences Mary very intentionally and successfully built a library collection that reflect her native students and the rich diversity of the community she is the daughter and granddaughter of members of The Standing Rock lotas Su Nation with the unique understanding Senator is committed to supporting positive legislation for our American Indian and marginalized people in Minnesota she we are so honored to have her with us she has done so much important work she is such a Trailblazer in this field in this area and it is my honor to to welcome her just a side note she is also she has the role of assistant minority leader in the Minnesota Senate and that is the first time a native am American has hold held that position uh in Minnesota so we are so excited to have you such a Trailblazer before we begin and you get into the conversation with Cynthia I was hoping you could share with me a little bit about your background uh your your role and your um involvement in the American Indian Library Association sure well shant LA makota and my name is Senator Mary kunesh I am a state senator here in Minnesota and um just as you said I was also a library media specialist for 25 years and I can't think of a better job in a school than than to be able to do that uh a as a uh educator I often looked for ways to broaden my understanding around literature and auth authors and and just as it was mentioned I know it is so important that our student uh literature and hear stories about themselves or their ancestry as well and so uh always looking for uh leg um literature that really reflects our students the American Indian La uh La Library Association really made all the difference for me because they were able to uh be an incredible resource um Aya as we call it American Indian Library Association was founded in 1979 and we are there to increase awareness that there are Library services for Native Americans um mostly because they have been so woefully inadequate uh and so uh what we try to do is address Library related needs that really focus on American Indians and Alaskan natives and so we develop programs to improve uh Indian libraries um that Carrie our Native American Authors uh we want to be able to ensure that we have authentic stories about culture and language and informations for our schools and the public and um research libraries especially on reservations and so we're super committed to sharing and educating information about Indian cultures and language values and information um with with the broader uh you know communities which is this is so great this is exactly what we want to do we want to highlight this incredible author whose books have been my longtime favorite forever um and it we also have um the responsibility of every year coming up with you know the current list of of books for uh teachers and the public to read um but we also um make an award the American Indian youth award and so I would encourage anybody and everybody to um go to AA do aaet a i l a net.org and uh read a little bit about us learn about us and there's so many great resources on our on our um on our website that's so wonderful thank you senator for sharing all of that and I know you guiding the conversation with Cynthia will be so wonderful Cynthia also is such a Trailblazer with everything she's she's done and created and not only the books but also her leadership in by curating um the heart the heart drum um imprint right so I I'm so excited to to hear your conversation and I will get to talk to you both at the end of the show enjoy well now is the great time that I get to have an incredible conversation as I said with one of my very favorite authors and I have to tell you I carried uh probably all of your literature in my libraries um from your picture book uh the uh the jingle dress dance um all the way up to many of these that that we'll be talking about but you really and truly are a Trailblazer just not for our um American Indian communities and readers but you are a New York Times best-selling author and as it was mentioned curator um of content for heart drum which is an imprint of Harper um Collins and so we're going to be looking at two of your um most recent books one is called Sisters of the never SE and I know that once folks start to to um hear more about this book uh there are going to be a lot of kids that are been clamoring for this book because it's a new Twist on Peter Pan so would you do us all a favor and just briefly share the premise and how you uh sort of reimagine the story of Peter Pan from your Viewpoint and the indigenous uh uh lens certainly m h Senator it is such an honor to be here with you and it is such a rare pleasure for me to be able to say senator to a fellow indigenous woman thank you for your leaders ship as in in politics in libraries I'm so grateful for all you do and for raising up this conversation for young readers so yes Sisters of the nevere is a book that we call a middle-grade novel so the core audience for that is upper elementary school going into Middle School this gorgeous cover was created by Floyd Cooper he was one of the greatest children's book illustrators who ever lived he was a fellow tribally enrolled citizen of Mogi nation and so this is a book that was both written and illustrated by Mogi tribal members it is a contemporary update to JM Barry's Peter Pan a longtime classic of children's literature which has many kid-friendly elements it has flying kids and fairies and uh storybook not not real but storybook Pirates and mermaids or folk if you will and as a little girl those elements all appealed to me also at the same time like a lot of kids there were things that were just a disconnect the depiction of native people on the island why would there be indigenous people on an island that was so magical why w why Wen they at home in their tribal communities I had so many questions um also the role of girls you know as a young contemporary girl I saw myself in different roles than Wendy or Tiger Lily more like you more as someone who might someday grow up to be a leader in her community and make contributions in that way as well as how villain was handled um lot lots of I don't know if you've read the original Peter Pan lately uh but this is a bit more gentle when it comes to sword fight uh although there is plenty of swashbuckling adventure to be had so I saw things about the berry classic that that I thought were really still kid-friendly I saw opportunity to re-envision it to invite all children including indigenous children into the magic to emphasize to them that they belonged in the world of books too even in the world of fairy tales uh you know when we think about children's literature we're really thinking about is a long tradition stretching all the way back to you know the early storytelling circles and certainly we want kids today to feel as though they can be the heroes of their own stories and that's reinforced by seeing Heroes like them in the pages of books that that's just so fabulous you know um in the the um Native American tradition especially up here in Minnesota where it gets really really cold in the winter this is storytelling season this is when um you know our ancestors would hunker down inside their lodges and they would tell stories and this is how passed on the culture and and and taught student uh their their children um you know skills and moral lessons and that sort of thing and I sort of felt like when I was reading that that you had some sort of messages in there and you sort of alluded to it with the um the sword play in there but why do you um I guess my question is why now is it so important that we have these kind of stories um uh that we can share across the cultures across the um age levels because I think there's a lot of adults that are going to enjoy this book as well but is there any reason that you know or was there something behind why you put this book out or what inspired you to um to share your story at this time in in in our world I do believe that we've reached a point in which Cultural Literacy is going to be as important as verbal or visual especially because this is an Ever more Global Society on every front be it in in literature but also certainly uh politics in um Commerce our children are going to need to know how to navigate the spaces that may sometimes feel awkward or like more of a stretch between them and one safe way in which they have an opportunity to to first um you know Forge these relationships is in the pages of books by presenting characters who are fully rounded three-dimensional authentic with a range of emotion and experiences and perspectives they the young reader has a chance to vicariously insert themselves in the story and navigate those conversations to um become more aware of folks who may be different from them in some way that is affirming and also builds their confidence gosh that is so great we need those sort of stories and examples in this day and age but the diversity of our communities is is so wonderful so um in this book uh in your book you have a character Lily and and Wendy and they have a lot of things in common but they have a lot of things that are very different they they both both come from almost two different worlds and they move to two different world you know into different worlds as well I know that um you grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City and in the tribal um towns of Oklahoma so you kind of got to straddle two different worlds as well and so I'm wondering if that has any influence in in your writing and in your work like a lot of native kids I was based in in um well in my case a suburban area a lot of them are in urban areas but native kids are everywhere small towns tribal communities a lot of times teachers will say to me I I'm not sure if we have any native children in our classroom and I say you don't know you can't always tell by looking and it is safe to assume that you would want to create an environment in which if there is a native child there they feel welcome and loved and at home um that said I do think that the relationship between Lily and Wy is really interesting they're step sisters and they're best friends and they love each other so much at the same time their temperaments are both wonderful and likable but certainly sometimes in opposition in the way that all siblings are be they in a biological or a blended sibling relationship and so Lily is very pragmatic she wants to be a scientist and she reads non-fiction and and she studies animals and she's very fact oriented so magic for her is something of a stretch it takes her out of her comfort zone it makes her ask questions she's never asked before it makes her reevaluate the way that she sees the world meanwhile Wendy is more fanciful she is a fantasy novel reader she is one of those kids who would have grabbed Sisters of the nevere right off the shelf and shared it with her siblings and gobbled it up she loves the idea of fairies and she wants to be a wizard when she grows up so you know you have these two very different kids and they have to learn to navigate that too in the family it's it's like a little microcosm um you know one of the things that we think about when we're talking about kids is that they each of them is a world unto themselves and there is so much tremendous diversity within every young reader that must be honored and respected and so we try to do the same thing with their heroes in books I love that that is really sort of U my Mantra as a school librarian but I'll also tell you I grew up in a family of 13 kids oh my good so we all had different reading you know we loved to read and my parents totally encouraged it um and so we all had sort of different flavors of of of books just like non-fiction fiction uh fantasy those sort of things and so as I was reading that book I could actually sort of see in my mind's eye when I was growing up and how we would sort of hand off certain certain things to the other knowing that they would like that I I think that um the relationship that those two young girls have is just so absolutely beautiful you know um so many of our our families today are Blended families and I think uh there's a statistic that says about 40% of our families in the US um you know have Blended them their their families from from different places and under different circumstances and so it's really important to recognize I think as as for kids as they're reading this that it's okay to be different but still support each other and love each other and appreciate each other's little you know uh personality in uh syncrasy and so um I'm wondering as you uh wrote this book do you um was there something or someone or maybe a couple of folks that influenc these these characters that you have created in your book or is this just were they just something that a little FL fairy landed on your shoulders and whispered in your ear and now we have Lily and Wendy oh well first I would like my fairy please that sounds wonderful and I need help with all of my future books too if she is taking notes uh that said I am I was raised an only child uh with you know my parents could have one they said at least we got a good one and that was that uh but I had so many cousins and so it was like having siblings you know my aunties were like second moms my grandparents house was as much if not more home in some ways than Mom and Dad's and it was very much that feeling of togetherness one of my best friends is my third cousin and a lot of people I meet don't even know their second cousins it's just mysterious serous to me so I wanted to show those kind of loving Dynamics between peer kids I also wanted to show that it's okay if you don't always agree with everything all the time it's okay if you're different people you can work it out through love and through patience and holding on sometimes it just takes time and particularly in the case of the story a little bit better communication there are some assumptions on both sides as often happens in real life and so the adventure of going to Neverland in part sort of forces both girls to stop and say hey this person is so important to me this may be a sister that I gained through marriage but this is the sister of my heart and I choose her forever my son has a brother like that not a blood brother but uh another boy that he grew up with and they are you know they did the whole blood thing you know and so yeah yeah I can just imagine this so um I always love it when I'm listening to authors talk about their work and their books um I always wonder what their favorite part is and so my next question for you is do you have a favorite part of that book and um would you would you read that for us in your voice oh certainly you know there there is a lot that I love about the Fantastical and so much of it appears here you know you have the giant tick-tocking crocodile and uh a somewhat boastful flying boy who re-evaluates his life but I'm a writer who draws very much on the natural world especially the celestial when I'm thinking about um you know being watched over by the heavens by the a sense of passage of time a sense of connection to Eternity and so I will read a passage that touches on the perspective of the stars who get just a hint of what the voice of the narrator is like the stars turn their attention to the young Children of the family the ones who hadn't grown up yet the Stars knew what was coming who was lurking they always did they'd Seen It All Before countless times across vast green oceans and ethereal night skies they recognized the tiny sparkling glow nearly hidden in the wise old oak tree sprawling above the backyard they recognized the crouched shadowy figures within its branches the Stars weren't the only Spectators closely observing Lily Wendy and Michael I can just you know the imagery is just is just right there thank you so much for sharing that with us um and I'm wondering do you have any other traditional fairy tales that are maybe lurking behind us that you might be thinking that to to uh retell in a in a very unique way I I have considered that due to enthusiasm for Sisters of the never sea and a desire to see indigenous characters in the uh tradition of fairy tale that it might be worth revisiting but I haven't landed on one just yet I do have a little inkling in the back of my mind but there hasn't quite been a commitment oh it takes a while for all of those to sort of percolate right for those characters to emerge themselves and and uh let you know that they're waiting to be told I think that if we can use some of those those those familiar stories you know that we have heard from you know European Americans and adapt them much like the Cinderella series that that we have picture books of retelling that story in many different cultures it's a I have a whole shelf on my in my library that um that tells those stories uh in their own unique way and so we will absolutely be looking forward to to those next uh fairy tales coming out of your own work and and the experiences that you may have had it gives us a chance to add our voice to the conversation and and I know what you mean about Cinderella I I believe that the earliest Cinderella Story stretch back to ancient China and so there are some themes that bubble up again and again uh and I think one of them is this idea of kids escaping to a world without parental figures in it and trying to figure out for themselves who they are and how they relate to one another and so even though Peter Pan is um Springs specifically from Barry's Vision originally it does pull on some of the larger uh traditions and storytelling elements of Storytelling that we have seen from cultures around the world including some that do parallel with some indigenous storytelling Traditions yeah I we see it everywhere we oftentimes just are not recognizing what it is so I'm Senator Mary Kunes and you are watching PBS books I'm here with trailblazing author C Cynthia lch uh Smith and we are discussing her two 2 2021 releases sister of the never seee and ancestor is approved and just a reminder if you have a question for Cynthia please don't forget to put it in the chat and hopefully we'll have time at the end to to uh answer those questions so I think I would like to I mean I could I I I could discuss this book for a long time I have more questions but I think it's really really time that we move on to um ancestors approved this is really an incredible collection of intertribal stories um about kids for kids and uh within it so there are some stories that you know nearly brought me to tears and others that you know gave me a great big smile and so I'm really excited to talk to you about that book as well but before we go into that uh to the questions about that or talking about it would you please just give us a little little bit of um background about your your um life and your ancestors uh certainly I am um tribally enrolled citizen of Mogi Nation our people are originally from what's currently called uh the Southeastern section of the United States we were relocated to Indian Territory which is now um currently called the state of Oklahoma although we have regained some control of our tribal lands thanks to recent Supreme Court decision uh my family is originally largely from chakota although now we have spread across through Oklahoma tribal towns and you'll also find a handful like me who are scattered I'm based here in Austin Texas and I have cousins you know farflung um I am blessed that some of my cousins do live here in Austin and that I am able to go home to um visit family in Mogi Nation my grandfather was stationed at Richard scar Air Force Base outside of Kansas City he was a Mogi man and he grew up at senica Indian School which was in wad Oklahoma and when he was relocated to the Air Force Base my branch of the family came up fortunately it wasn't a relocation to Guang you can drive home from Kansas City to um all those little towns you know to okoi to Mogi in over the course of a weekend so we were able to go back for Summers for holidays for significant family events and I have maintained um that road trip up and down you know a lot of it is I35 with some offshoots uh but ever since and I am profoundly blessed sounds wonderful family no matter how extended is so so very important and we see that in in in this um collection of stories and poems and so uh my next question is kind of like what inspired you to compile you know gather all these Middle School short stories and poems specifically by native authors um you know what was your process and how did you go about choosing which and and what and how and why certainly um first as before I should mention that this cover art is done by an indigenous illustrator Nicole neart is Navajo and I think she just did an absolutely gorgeous job with a Shaw dancer that said uh the pow out in the story is the dance for Mother Earth powow in an Arbor Michigan I went to law school at the University of Michigan in an arbor and so I had a relationship to that place to that event that went back a long way Michigan also had the benefit of being in the central ish going east west of the United States so that I could integrate stories from First Nations authors whose tribal homes were north of the US Canadian border it was important to me to have the story show in an organic way that that border is not necessarily a border between um the indigenous lands as we think of them per se in fact there are tribes whose ancestral territories and current lands do sort of border the two so that was kind of the geographic reason and then beyond that a powow is an occasion for kids of various tribes to come together it's a family event it's celebratory there are a lot of different roles that children take on um they might be dancers their families might be Traders they might be selling you know ever popular FR bread there's plenty for them to do there W well there's plenty to do and read in in um your book and just as I asked you about your favorite uh part or to read a part in Sisters of the never see um do you have a favorite story or a favorite bit from this book that you'd like to share with us as well you know there are so many stories and both poems The Collection both begins and ends with a poem the first by Kim Rogers who's Witchita and the last by um Carol I am blanking on Carol's name even though she's one of my best friends so uh and you know I think that if I picked any of them that that would just be absolutely wrong I will not do it Carol lrom um but I would like to read just a bit from my Note to the reader so that they have a sense of what the book is about and what the feeling of it is wonderful images of graceful dancers in power regalia a blur of color light and motion often are widely shared to reflect native people today those vibrant photos and videos evoke culture tradition and Community celebrating a moment in time yet the native dancers depicted and the intertribal poow that surround them live well beyond that moment they are multifaceted people and Gatherings each representing thousands of stories a is a terrific opportunity to highlight the diversity of the intertribal Native and First Nations community of individual indigenous Nations living within it and of young Native Heroes beautiful beautiful I I'm looking looking at that um that poem it's called um what is a powow and there's um there's a lot in here there's like so much about pows and if folks haven't had the opportunity to attend a pow you know most of them are are open to the public and they welcome non-native folks I mean there's certain protocols so do your own um investigation about you know how to be respectful and appropriate at a Pao but there's one um part in here where it says a paow is a place for belly laughing late into a sleepy night with your grandpa Lou and then getting home after midnight and I I you know we have um powow throughout the summer here in Minnesota and around the dtas and into Wisconsin and um it makes me think of you know like if I'm sitting in the stands or sitting in a a seat and watching the Powell especially when it's late at night and the kids start to get sleepy and kind of quirky and and um adults are kind are getting more you know tired but they're excited because of seeing all the folks that they're there and then when you hear the elders and the grandparents start to talk to their kids and and um that belly laugh I I mean in my ears it rings I've heard it so many times and so as I read that poem um it was it really came to to mind for me and I think it's absolutely wonderful that we can see that imagery of what a Pao is like um through those stories I'm wondering um uh if there uh are any writers or you know after you have made this collection because I'm sure it was hard to pick these and then limit it to these uh do you think there will be another one or are there stor stories and poems that you either missed or that have come along since this was published that you'd like to um maybe create another collection oh certainly it has been uh thought suggested multiple occasions really when you look at the list of these contributors this is a snapshot in time yep we I put this together some years ago because it it takes a while to create a book especially one like this that is interconnected the authors worked together to do the World building and fact this picture on the cover depicts one of the characters in one of the stories so there was a lot of coordination involved since then the native children's and young adults writing and illustrating Community has just expanded so magnificently I couldn't possibly be more thrilled uh we have reached a place in which I can say hey this is um you know this is really a substantial group of people if we were going to do a project I would have to think so hard or I would just have to publish a much bigger book it would just have to be longer that's all I can say yeah you just have volume one volume two volume three and keep going you know I I think back to when I um started teaching and became a library media specialist and there were very if I mean current literature that was um truthful and and you know first person authentic was non-existing and we've come so far in the last uh I want to say like 10 years where Native authors are starting to to Really um put out some incredible pieces of literature that that really tell our story The heartbreaking kind of The Good the Bad and the Ugly and I just think that um we can't be uh you know we can't show the gratitude so many teachers would come to me and sayoh it's Native American month we need some books that we can read do you have anything to suggest and for a long time there really wasn't much at all and then all of a sudden there was this explosion of authors and incredible literature and I just remember you know like saving a big chunk of my budget of books so that I could go to we have a bookstore here in in Minneapolis the birch bark book store um erdrich owns it she's a a um a Nish naabi author and um I would save a big chunk of money and go in there and it was just like Christmas Day picking books off the shelf and ordering them so please continue I my message to all these authors is please continue to to um share your thoughts and your stories it's the world is so much richer than that so I guess our my last question is is there anything else coming down the pike that you have for us that we we can be looking forward to certainly um first I must say you know that as you say extreme growth is so much because of organizations like the American Indian Library Association like organizations um like PBS books for lifting up our voices I would love to take this opportunity to just briefly highlight some of the books on our heart drum list paper back copies are coming soon so I will shine a light this is Jojo mcons This is the first first in a series starring a contemporary young girl it they're humorous they're adorable she loves her little cat Mimi and she has a very unique viewpoint on the world the sea in Winter by Christine day is a beautiful emotionally rendered thoughtful look about the power of family love and persistence through adversity it's so good for pandemic times healer of the water monster Bri Byron Young this is a book that is very much rooted in the culture and the community of the Navajo reservation and its belief systems in a way that is profoundly respectful and authentic I'm so honored to have a connection to all of those through the imprint and we have coming up the summer of bitter and sweet by a debut author Jen Ferguson this is a book for upper teenagers and it's about a girl who works at an ice cream shop and is Ling with her past family complications it has a bit of a mystery into the root of it but also some kind of refreshing romance for those of you who like that sort of page turning element as for me I'm looking forward to the release of my graphic novel series sisters sorry wrong book already talked about that one uh the blue stars which is co-authored by kekla magon and illustrated by Molly morami oh I cannot wait to get my hands on some of those books I I look at the covers and you know covers do sell books and they do attract kids and every single one of those I know that if I held them up in my library um kids would go nuts about him so uh kudos to the to the illustrators and the artists that that go along with the books and make them even more exciting to read anything any last words that you want to tell us uh about being an author and uh an indigenous author as that being an author has been the greatest blessing of my life if I could go back in time to when I was 10 years old until that very shy sometimes bullied little girl who would hide out over lunch hour in the school library because the librarian was so nice that she let her I would say hey this world of books this is where you can shine and it you can do it as your own self but you can also do it vicariously through these stories and Adventures is it'll open up a whole world of possibilities to you and it'll teach you how to be a hero too that's what books do that's what they're there for thank you so much s Cynthia thank you for giving me this opportunity to meet you and talk with you wopa tanka CH migu piamia this has been just an incredible incredible opportunity thank you my friend well this has been an incredible conversation um and I really I just want to thank Cynthia for your creativity your Works your thoughtfulness um for being such an advocate both of you are Advocates and both of you are Trailblazers um Senator Kunes thank you for guiding the conversation and thank you for the work you're doing in Minnesota um and and for really our country right because what we see is things start places and then they go other places throughout I also want everyone to know that we will will be speaking in May to the author Don Quigley um when her second book comes out so stay tuned uh it is a PBS books program in collaboration again with the American Indian Library Association so um thank you so much um it's just been wonderful to have two Trailblazers on this show and until next time um from PBS books we hope you enjoyed this show and happy [Music] reading [Music] for [Music]