Fry Bread

Title: Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story

Writer: Kevin Noble Maillard

Illustrator: Juana Martinez-Neal

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Cover image © Roaring Brook Press, a division of Macmillan Publishers. Used under fair use for educational review purposes.

Summary

This book tells the story of Native American fry bread and is divided into two parts. The first part is written for children, while the second part is intended for adults and provides detailed information about the history of Indigenous peoples in North America. It also includes the author’s personal connection to fry bread traditions in his family, who are members of the Seminole Nation, Mekusukey Band of Oklahoma.

Cultural Analysis

This book brought tears to my eyes for two reasons. First, it brought up pain at knowing the long history of murder and torture inflicted upon the indigenous inhabitants of what we now call the Americas. The brutality of this story has not been fully taught to students today. This book began that conversation for children and the adults in their lives that want to give them a more realistic and age-appropriate introduction to the generational trauma inflicted upon the first peoples of our continent. The second reason I cried while reading this was out of (muted) happiness because despite the horrors the Native American peoples have adapted and are doing their best to continue their millennia long traditions despite the destruction.

Literary Quality

The book is written in short lines that appear like free form poetry. Each two-page section starts with the repetition of “FRY BREAD IS…”. That repetition is useful for younger readers as it gives them a simple mantra-like phrase that ties the book together. It is also masterful in its simplicity because it can be understood by an indigenous audience as fry bread is what unites us together and at the same time it can be understood by a non-indigenous audience as this one way that indigenous peoples are united together.

Under each, what I’ll call theme for each two-page section, is a poem-like explanation of the primary theme of the section.

Example:

“FRY BREAD IS SHAPE [two-page section theme]
Hands mold the dough [exposition of theme]
Flat like a pancake
Round like a ball
Or puffy like Nana’s softest pillow” (Maillard, 2019)

This repetition of the “FRY BREAD IS” (Maillard, 2019) ties the entire work together and allows Maillard to focus on the different aspects of that actual physical production of fry bread, but also weave in the history of fry bread. By creating such a simple theme stem it allows him to not simply write about fry bread, but to incorporate his own personal history as well as the histories of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

The second section of the book reads like a personal memoir in which he explains, presumably for adults as the lexile level is considerably higher than the children’s section of the book. From an educational point of view, this inclusion is masterful because it gives the adults further context to answer the questions that will invariably arise while reading a text about people groups with which there is scant knowledge or understanding within the general population of our country. This analysis does break down at the end of the children’s section where it says “Fry bread is YOU!” (Maillard, 2019) as I do not believe it is the intention of the author to include the non-indigenous audience within that “you” given historical context and struggle for recognition by antagonistic federal governments across North America.

Overall, I would consider this text to have considerable literary merit.

Language/Speech

As mentioned above the first section of the book is written in poem form. It does not contain any slang and is written in Mainstream American English. It was written for a mixed audience of children and adults, as well as natives and non-natives. There is no derogatory language used. There was no mockery within the text. There was no code switching used. There was no foreign language used.

Characters

The book did not have any characters in the traditional sense. It did feature images of the same people throughout including an elderly lady, an elderly man, some adults, and then children of a variety of skin tones (to represent the variety of skin tones within indigenous communities, many of which contain members with an admixture of heritages).

Cultural Background

This was written by Kevin Noble Maillard, who is a tribal member of the Seminole Nation, Mekusukey Band of Oklahoma. He is writing from his own personal experience as a Native American. His history can be fact-checked, and he provides three reference sources for the adult section of the book, as well as fifteen notes, many of which contain websites that he consulted for information (and which the reader may fact-check).

Lifestyle

The book’s primary theme is fry bread, which is a large part of many Native American’s food tradition. It is presented in a nuanced manner that includes all the varieties of fry bread tradition around the continent.

Artistic Quality

The art is beautiful. It uses an exaggerated whimsical art style to depict the characters, but the exaggerations do not distort the people in any stereotypically negative ways. All the people depicted are distinct looking and there is a great deal of variety in the types of skin tones, hair colors, hair types, hair styles, and body styles depicted. All of the depictions are done with respect. These diverse depictions are to further the idea that indigenous people do not look one way, but are as diverse as the rest of the population.

Author photo from Kevin Noble Maillard’s official website. Used under fair use for educational purposes.

Illustration from Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story, written by Kevin Noble Maillard and illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal, © Roaring Brook Press, 2019. Used under fair use for educational analysis.

Illustration Purpose

The purpose of the illustrations are to depict the diversity within indigenous populations. They are also included to keep the attention of younger readers, who need bright visuals and variety in order to maintain their attention for an extended period of time.

Purpose

As explained throughout this evaluation, this book was written by Professor Maillard, a member of the Seminole Tribe, Mekusukey Band of Oklahoma, with the purpose of explaining the importance of fry bread to many of the over 1200 tribes recognized by either Canada or the US governments. It’s also written for indigenous children to show that despite their differences, the sundry tribes are united by traditions like fry bread.

Insider/Outsider Status

Professor Maillard is an insider.

Insider/Outsider Status

As explained throughout this evaluation, this book was written by Professor Maillard, a member of the Seminole Tribe, Mekusukey Band of Oklahoma, with the purpose of explaining the importance of fry bread to many of the over 1200 tribes recognized by either Canada or the US governments. It’s also written for indigenous children to show that despite their differences, the sundry tribes are united by traditions like fry bread.

Conclusion

This was a beautifully written and illustrated book. It is well-researched and written from the perspective of a Native American. I recommend it for children as young as five or six as well as the adults in their lives who want to learn more about the first peoples whose ancestors have been here for thousands of years.