In the following review-essay, Seale questions whether Hatter Fox is acceptable reading material for the classroom, asserting that the novel's message is one of hopelessness for Native Americans.

Native survivors of public education, of the generation now into the middle years, learned to keep a low profile in the classroom. Most years, there were the Conquistadors and Westward Expansion; every year, we got the Pilgrim Fathers. If you were lucky and quiet, you might get through all of it without being asked to be Indian-show-andtell for Thanksgiving. (There was, at least, no assigned reading on Indians.) Well, we are all long grown, with children, young relatives and friends coming up behind us, and every year they still get Conquistadors, Westward Expansion, Pilgrim Fathers and Thanksgiving. But now history units frequently do include an "Indians" reading assignment.

These reading assignments are given with good intentions. Sometimes, the teacher...