Most of the school boards still using race-based sports identities refuse to end their race-based sports policy. What happened in the book is amazingly similar to what happens in ALMOST EVERY school district when an American Indian asks that their race not be used as a good-luck charm. All too often, the American Indian family has to move to a different school district because it becomes impossible to live there. Every family that raises the issue is at risk of violence. The pressure is intense.
I know this to be the case because my wife (who is Oneida) and I have worked almost full time in this civil rights arena since 2002. We have been subjected to this horror in our own school district in Wisconsin and have worked with many others across the nation who had the same experience when asking for an end to the race-based school board sports policy.
As an example, in the Osseo-Fairchild School District in Wisconsin, my wife was told in a message left on our answering machine "Why don't you go back to the reservation where you belong!" A letter to the editor in the local newspaper said we should "pack up and get out of town!" A Caucasian ally's barn was severely vandalized not once but twice with disgusting graffiti. Another American Indian family had their mailbox vandalized when the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council asked our School Board to end their race-based practice targeting American Indians. The list of incidents goes on and on. It was only getting a civil rights state law passed in Wisconsin regarding race-based identities that finally forced Osseo-Fairchild's School Board to stop using race as the basis for their sports policy.
Sadly, what we experienced and what is described in "Who Will Tell My Brother?" is very common and happens in school district after school district across this nation. This book describes the reality that American Indians in these school districts face every day if they speak up against the discriminatory school board policy. After reading this book, anyone with a sense of justice should better understand why this is an unacceptable injustice in our society.
Going to indianmascots (dot) com is an excellent source to access the new research that shows how these race-based sports identities are psychologically harmful to American Indian students. That same website also has the research which determined that exposure to race-based sports identities increases receptivity to negative stereotypes about OTHER minority students. So this is of major importance to ALL minority families. Additionally, it's important to students of ALL races including European Americans because ALL students should be able to experience an educational environment (1) free from racial stereotypes and (2) that doesn't "teach" students that racial stereotyping is acceptable in society.
This book should be required reading for school board members, administrators, teachers and students in every one of these school districts. Instead, too many in these school districts prefer to be "willfully ignorant" of the research and why their school sports policy constitutes harmful discrimination based on race. Please read this book! Then please share it with someone in one of these school districts!

A great gift for a 9-14 year old with some Native american ancestry - or with Native American friends. In addition to being entertaining, it opens their mind to some of the issues in America that they should consider as they beocme adults

I love this book but the seller sent me a too old book.

This is a depressing book a mom wrote about her kid being picked on. It's biased from a mother's point of view and not uplifting in any way. If you want to be depressed and think that the world is an aweful place, this is the book for you. Oh, and she keeps noting that her family is PART native american. I'm not sure what she's trying to accomplish by this except maybe pointing out that her children are minorities and should be treated differently? She does say that they look white. They are more white than not. Who cares? She's trying to make it seem like a racial issue. She's making a bad situation look as bad as she possibly can. A mother trying to heal, the world is so aweful book.

This book was about my highschool and highschool mascot. Her son got picked on for having long hair. She got upset and wrote a book about it. The author is NOT native American. Her husband is 25 percent Cherokee but that's as deep as her native American heritage goes. She immediately quit her job after releasing this book and used her position as an English teacher to peddle it to other schools. The author and her husband are actually nice people but I don't agree at all with how it was marketed or with the content of the book. The dog mentioned in the story is the biggest victim. I was forced to read this around 12 years ago and still remember it. I also remember the marketing seminar where we got to meet the author/the English teacher who used to be down the hall from us. Using someone else's struggles for your own personal gain is pretty low

Evan is a high school student descended from Native Americans. His father's relatives still live on a reservation and Evan and his mother and brother visit them there. But other than this heritage, Evan is a pretty typical high school student.

But then, one day at a school pep rally, Evan finds himself really bothered by what he sees. His school's mascot is an Indian, a horrible caricature of Indian traditions. The mascot does clumsy Indian dances, wears a headband with feathers and shrieks out war whoops. The cheerleaders have their faces streaked with color to imitate war paint. Evan grows more and more embarrassed and upset as the pep rally continues, until he thinks he can't stand it anymore. He decides to try to do something about the situation.

Like his older brother did years before Evan when he was in high school, Evan goes to the school board to ask them to consider changing the school's mascot to something less offensive. Although he approaches them time and time again, they state that the members of the school take pride in their mascot and it isn't hurting anyone. Evan continues the fight, although he is harassed at school. Can one student win a battle against an entire town?

I liked that the story was told in poems, but each poem was detailed enough to give me a clear idea of what was going on. I liked the ending of this story, too.

I think this story is already a bit out of date, though. In our current state of political correctness, I don't think a school board would dare to refuse a request such as Evan's anymore.