1) PBS is airing an "unvarnished" documentary of Laura Ingalls Wilder later this month. As I look over the materials on the site and the associated contest, it doesn't strike me as unvarnished.

I see a clip of Louise Erdrich that is good. She says:

2) "What I see these books as, basically, I would say they're like Gone with the Wind, for kids. Kids are certainly gonna love Little House; grown ups like Gone with the Wind...

3) "... But what is it, really? It's a way of valorizing the things that destroyed entire peoples in this country."

4) Also in that clip (the one titled "Roxane Gay and others on racist "Little House" depictions" there is clip of a classroom teacher asking children to come up with new names "that may be more respectful for the Native American culture."

5) Will there be more of Erdrich, and of this teacher, in the full documentary? What, I wonder are the children provided with, such that they would come up with a more respectful name? For the most part, Wilder uses "Indians" in her books.

6) There's also a bit about ALA changing the name of the Wilder award. Will there be more about that in the documentary? I hope so but at the moment, it seems that PBS is valorizing Wilder and the books. There's a song list, and a shelfie contest, and quizzes...

7) One of the books is shown, open to a page I don't remember. I found it in book 9, THE FIRST FOUR YEARS, on page 35. Laura is grown up. Indians come to the door and make signs that they won't hurt her.

8) She thinks they're probably hungry but "one never could tell. It was only three years ago that the Indians nearly went on the warpath a little way west, and even now they often threatened the railroad camps."

That constant fear of Native people runs thru these bks.

9) She sees them go inside the barn, goes to the barn, and orders them out. She "stormed at them and stamped her feet." One tries to talk to her and puts his hand on her arm. She slaps him. He gets mad and starts to her, but the others laugh, and one who seems to be the leader...

10) ... stops him. He points to himself, his pony, and gestures toward the west and says "You go--me--be my squaw?"

Where does this book take place? There's obvious bias in how the stories are told but the use of "squaw" is also a problem. What tribal nation do these...

11) ... Indians belong to? What language do they speak? Would they be using "squaw"? I don't think so. That's one of the words that became incorrectly known across white society as the Indian word for woman, as if the over 500 tribal nations spoke the same language.

12) And the whole sentence is odd, too. He knows some English, but not the English word for wife? All that aside, would he do that, anyway?!