Thinking About Your Library's Thanksgiving Collection

With the spotlight on diversity and inclusion, November is a good time to take a look at your library's Thanksgiving collection. It may be time to select new materials that reflect Native American perspectives on Thanksgiving, evaluate and deselect materials that are outdated, biased, inaccurate or misrepresentative. As you create displays or hang posters, consider what you are showing and who might be seeing it.

Resources you might want to use:

Debbie Reese's 2009 article on American Indian Perspectives on Thanksgiving 

Debbie Reese's 2014 article about Oyate's List of Books to Avoid, as well as books Debbie recommends

The educator's page at the National Museum of the American Indian (NAMI) website

American Indian Library Association book reviews page

Oyate's website where you can find book reviews, resources, workshops, and criteria for evaluating books for anti-Indian bias

The paper "I is for Inclusion: The Portrayal of Native Americans in Books for Young People" which covers background, evaluation, and sources for books among other things.

The Resource List from the WLA Preconference Representation, Authenticity, and Being Real: Diversity in Youth Services presented by Anna Haase Krueger and Tamara Lee of the Ramsey County Library, MN 

This list is by no means exhaustive, so please share your resources or suggestions in the comments.