Alarid, Carilyn, and Marilyn Markel Old Grandfather Teaches a Lesson: Mimbres Children Learn Respect illustrated by the authors Sunstone, 2005 115 pages, b/w illustrations grades 1-3 Mimbres

There’s very little known about the Mimbres society, but they probably weren’t didactic and boring. These traits are known to have come over from Europe, and remain today as cultural markers.

In this incredibly lengthy, really predictable and dreadfully boring “story,” four Mimbreño kids—“Runs Like the Wind,” “Talks All Day,” “Hits with His Fist,” and “Thinks a Lot”—can’t agree on what game to play. “Runs” wants to, uh, run; “Talks” wants to talk, et cetera. So “Old Grandfather” comes along and teaches them how to communicate and respect each other using a “talking stick.” This takes 115 teeth-gnashing pages and 87 extremely ugly black-and-white illustrations. By the end of the book, the Mimbreño kids have learned to use a “talking stick” so that Old Grandfather will stop talking, and young readers will have learned to hate reading.

No one knows whether or not the Mimbreños used “talking sticks.” Even the authors know this and issue this caveat, one of several: “This book in no way is intended to directly link the use of the Talking Stick with the Mimbres People.” Nevertheless, they end the book with instructions for making talking sticks; basically: Find a stick and some stuff. Glue the stuff on the stick. Add beads or other stuff. Paint it if you want to. Whatever.

Carilyn and Marilyn (they’re twins) write that they “have shared a love of the indigenous cultures…all their lives” and that they’ve developed this book to “share a means of teaching ethical behavior” and to “lay a foundation for respecting people and culture.” Cultural respect and ethical behavior are not taught; they’re modeled. The only thing Old Grandfather Teaches a Lesson teaches is muddled cross-cultural thinking. And a profound disrespect for the Indian descendants of the Mimbres people living in the New Mexico area.

—Beverly Slapin