In the Author's Note, Maillard provides teachers and parents and librarians who do not know this history, with information they can use to prepare to use the book with kids. The woman on the cover is telling kids about the long walk. One double paged spread shows Native people in shadow. It does-and that is yet another aspect of what makes this book stand out. In a comment, I was asked if the book has information about the history of fry bread and its impact on health of Native people. I highly recommend it! Published by Roaring Book Press (Macmillan) in 2019, I hope you'll order several copies for your bookshelves, and to give to Native families, too. It is quite the challenge to impart substantive information in an engaging way, but Maillard and Martinez-Neal have done it, beautifully, in Fry Bread.
This wide variety of faces reflects a history of intermingling between tribes and also with people of European, African, and Asian descent. Just like the characters I this book, Native people may have blonde hair or black skin, tight cornrows or a loose braid. But there is an enormous range of hair textures and skin colors. Most people think Native Americans always have brown skin and black hair. The final pages of Fry Bread can help you interrupt that kind of harmful statement. That's such a damaging statement! When you hear an adult say that to anybody-but especially a child-stop them. That expectation means that adults don't hesitate to tell a Native child like the girl holding the cat that they are "not really an Indian" (or some variant of that phrase). Fry Bread pushes back on the expectation that Native people look the same (black hair, dark skin, high cheekbones etc.). After the lecture, a family approached me to say how deeply moved they are by seeing a child with lighter skin and hair.
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