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• This Indian Kid: A Native American Memoir Scholastic Focus (New York, NY), 2023
• Cheyenne Madonna: Stories Black Sparrow Books/David R. Godine (Boston, MA), 2010

1. This Indian kid : a Native American memoir LCCN 2023005172 Type of material Book Personal name Chuculate, Eddie D., author. Main title This Indian kid : a Native American memoir / Eddie Chuculate. Edition First edition. Published/Produced New York, NY : Scholastic Focus, 2023. Description 207 pages : illustrations, map ; 22 cm ISBN 9781338802085 (hardcover) (ebook) CALL NUMBER E99.C9 C48 2023 FT MEADE Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 2. Cheyenne Madonna LCCN 2010008780 Type of material Book Personal name Chuculate, Eddie D. Main title Cheyenne Madonna / Eddie Chuculate. Edition 1st ed. Published/Created Boston : David R. Godine, Publisher, 2010. Description 146 p. ; 23 cm. ISBN 9781574232165 Shelf Location FLM2013 013074 CALL NUMBER PS3603.H833 C47 2010 OVERFLOWA5S Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM1)

• David R. Godine, Publisher - https://drgodine.blogspot.com/2011/03/eddie-chuculate-godine-interview.html

  Thursday, March 3, 2011
  Eddie Chuculate - A Godine Interview
  Eddie Chuculate is an American fiction writer whose stories typically feature Native American characters and culture. David R. Godine, Publisher had the privilege of publishing his debut book, Cheyenne Madonna, last year under its imprint Black Sparrow Books. This short story collection follows Jordan Coolwater, a Cheyenne Indian, throughout his life, first as a boy dealing with his family’s prejudices and alcoholism through his adult life struggling in the art industry and his marriage. These narratives depict what it means to be a Native American, from 1826 to the present-day, with gritty realism. Below, Eddie shares with us about his writing life, racism, and which NBA team will end the season on top.

  Racism is a big issue you tackle in Cheyenne Madonna, with the Native American characters portrayed as both the victims and the perpetrators of racism. How does racism still affect Native Americans today?

  It's a complicated issue. You find blatant racism more on the white towns just off the reservations in the north. In Oklahoma, it's a different animal. You find much more interracial activity, yet there are those ancient Indian haters that just won't go away anywhere you go.

  In a recent interview with The Short Review, you said that you typically write short stories because your “temperament is more suited to the short form.” What do you like about writing short stories vs. say, a novel?

  I think it all boils down to time. How much time you have to work on something. Years past, working full-time newspaper jobs, I had to squeeze in writing time around job duties, so I always tended toward something shorter, although it's certainly not easier, and doesn't always take less time. Now that I have more time to write at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, I'm working on a novel and stories. But I like the compression of short stories, where you can find novel-like arcs or experiences in, say, 20 pages.

  You are currently studying for your MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, consistently ranked as the #1 MFA program in the country. How is that going?

  Being at the Iowa Writers' Workshop is an honor and a blessing. More time to write. Surrounded by like-minded people. I wrote most of Cheyenne Madonna while out of academics, in the "real world," which has its advantages and disadvantages. Most people in the "real world" have no clue what you are doing, so you're pretty much stuck if you want to talk to someone about a problem you're having in your writing, or just discuss literature. I guess that's why there are book clubs, writers' groups, etc., but I never joined them. Being in the Iowa Writers' Workshop is also inspirational. Seeing all the good work being produced makes you want to get in gear. The time for excuses is over. I believe it was the British writer Samuel Butler who said, "If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find excuses." But the Iowa workshop is great in that you're surrounded by good, promising young writers and established mentors, some of whom have won the big literary prizes. On top of that, we have great visiting writers who teach for a semester or two, and writers and poets constantly coming in to read, host workshops, visit with us. And everyone in Iowa City in general, from the cabdriver to the guy sacking groceries, has heard of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. There's the legendary indy bookstore Prairie Lights with continual readings week in and week out, and statues of writers and plaques with writers' quotes—things you don't find in a typical American city. With Dublin, Edinburgh and Melbourne, Iowa City is just one of four of UNESCO's "Cities of Literature." To earn that distinction, you must meet certain criteria, including a commitment to literature, thriving libraries, events, and history of publishing.

  Two of the major characters in Cheyenne Madonna are artists. Do you paint or draw, etc.?

  I don't paint or draw, but come from a family of artists. Both my uncles painted and sculpted, and my friends' father growing up was perhaps the most famous Indian artist in Oklahoma, Jerome Tiger. Then I went to school at the Institute of American Indian Arts and was surrounded by more visual artists. Every time I go back to Santa Fe I stay at my friend's stone-sculpting studio, and there's always a bunch of sculptors, painters, musicians dropping by. So even though I don't paint or draw, I often find myself among them often.

  You were a newspaper sports writer for 9 years. Any early predictions for the NBA play-offs?

  I like Boston going all the way this year, in five over San Antonio, but it will take them seven to get past the Heat in the East finals. I don't think Melo will help the Knicks much, in seven seasons with the Nuggets he only got past the first round once.
  Posted by Staff at David R. Godine at 12:49 PM

• 1CT - https://ictnews.org/news/memoir-tackles-authors-childhood-in-oklahoma

  Memoir tackles author’s Oklahoma childhood
  Indigenous writer Eddie Chuculate’s latest book shares his perspective from Oklahoma childhood
  JOVONNE WAGNERSEP 19, 2023
  Eddie Chuculate, Cherokee and Creek, is the author of "This Indian Kid: A Native American Memoir,” which follows a young Chuculate through his middle school and high school years, growing up, playing baseball, fishing with his grandfather, and finding his calling in storytelling. (Photo courtesy of Eddie Chocolate)

  JoVonne Wagner
  ICT

  A memoir which follows the childhood of a Cherokee and Creek boy growing up in Oklahoma in the 70s showcasing the modern Native experience, is set to publish on Sept. 19.

  Author, Eddie Chuculate, grew up in Oklahoma where he graduated from Muskogee high school. He began his writing career as a sports journalist when he was a senior and has since gone on to write for numerous news publications.

  Now, Chucluate shared his motivation behind his new book, "This Indian Kid: A Native American Memoir,” with ICT that follows a young Chuculate through his middle school and high school years, growing up, playing baseball, fishing with his grandfather, and finding his calling in storytelling.

  “There's probably some Americans (that) still think stuff like that, like all Indians are on the reservation, they all hunt or they all have peace pipes, they all have long hair, et cetera,” the author said.

  The experiences shared in his memoir aim to give readers a more diverse perspective of Indigenous people growing up in the 60s and 70s, in an effort to combat the “Pan-Indian” narrative.

  The memoir, published through Scholastic Inc., is intended for a young adult audience, bringing in an education element from his childhood stories.

  “Experiences of Native Americans are widely varied. You can't just buttonhole or pigeonhole the experience,” he said. “There's Natives in every state and all over, you know, from Pacific Northwest to Florida to Maine and everyone's got a different circumstance, whether it be off or on the reservation.”

  The book follows Chuculate’s childhood, from living with his maternal grandparents in a house in Hanna, on the outskirts of Muskogee, Oklahoma, to bouncing around from different cities and towns. He moved to multiple schools in a short time frame, which gave him insight into varied people's lives, wealthy and not, Native, non-Native, urban and rural.

  “Well, I just thought that the average experience is, you know, going to school, playing on sports teams, going to the lake, stuff like that. I figured anybody, any race could identify with that,” he said.

  Childhood memories from his book encapsulate multiple lived experiences other people could relate to from their own adolescence, including his own trials and tribulations, he said.

  Scroll to Continue
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  From witnessing accounts of racism directed toward him or his friends to getting into trouble with one of his schools that lead to an expulsion, Chuculate reflects on the peers, friends and teachers who helped shape his path to success.

  Through second chances and being persistent with his own education, his stories enforce the notion that circumstances don't define a person's entire life.

  “I was kind of wanting to show like how the role of fate plays,” he said.

  After reminiscing about his grandparents' home, Chuculate shared his own takeaways after finishing his book and his own feelings of remembering the family that raised him.

  “It's kind of educational to you, yourself. Everyone, remembers scenes about their childhood, but when you spend like a year and a half, like I did, constantly thinking about it, every day you start to see some patterns develop and then you realize stuff like, wow, my mom, single mom worked all these jobs, stuff like that to become more appreciative of what your parents did for you,” Chuculate shared.

  “You don't think of that when it's happening. You're just a kid going to school, but when you're an adult you just realize the sacrifices that your elders made for you and you just become more appreciative.”

  The book is structured through chaptered short stories from his youth, and ends with him getting into sports writing though his softball coaches recruitment and journalism class. He went on to write for the Muskogee Phoenix, where he accumulated 226 bylines.

  Since then, Chuculate has published his first book, an adult fiction story titled, “Cheyenne Madonna.” He had won a creative writing fellowship at Stanford University, and has even freelanced for ICT, then named Indian Country Today.

  “This Indian Kid,” will be available to purchase on Sept.19 and has planned readings in Minnesota, Baltimore, Detroit and Arizona.

• High Country News - https://www.hcn.org/issues/44-17/the-west-in-my-blood-a-profile-of-eddie-chuculate/

  The West in my blood: A profile of Eddie Chuculate
  Chee Brossy
  October 17, 2012
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  Chuculate2.jpg
  Native American author Eddie Chuculate
  Chuculate2.jpg
  Native American author Eddie Chuculate

  Native American author Eddie Chuculate
  Two years ago, on a cool October evening at Santa Fe’s Institute of American Indian Arts, Native author Eddie Chuculate read his story “Dear Shorty” aloud. He spoke with a rolling rhythm, peppered by alliteration. With his head cocked, glasses in one hand and the book almost touching his nose, Chuculate held his listeners entranced.

  I was in the audience that night, caught up like everyone else by Chuculate’s storytelling — a mix of stark loneliness and buoyant voice. I’m Navajo from Arizona, a long way from Chuculate’s Oklahoma roots, but his stories are filled with people I know: tribal cops who tell bad jokes, the loudmouth at the local fair, a gangster teenager who will never leave the reservation. The stories are based on his own experiences, ranging from his youth in the small town of Muskogee to his artistic awakening in Santa Fe.

  “Dear Shorty” describes a young Creek/Cherokee man who wanders across the Southwest, in and out of trouble with alcohol and the law, all while writing letters to his dad. It’s from Chuculate’s first book, Cheyenne Madonna, a tale of Oklahoma grit and Native wanderlust. Creek poet Joy Harjo praised it, noting how the author “investigates the broken-heart nation of Indian men. The epicenter of action is the tenuous meeting place between boyhood and manhood, between fierce need and desire.”

  Chuculate, who is Creek Indian and Cherokee, first learned how to spin a tale at the family dinner table. “There were only three channels on TV. We’d spend the evenings acting out what happened that day, or we’d mimic how someone walked or talked.” After high school, Chuculate worked as a local sportswriter for a few years, but eventually decided he would “die if I had to cover one more Little League tournament or trout-fishing competition.”

  And so, in 1994, after a friend told him about the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, he hopped a Greyhound to the heart of the Southwest. His love affair with the West began on that journey. “In the morning, the sun came up behind the Sandias — that was the first time I saw mountains.” At the Native contemporary arts school, Chuculate thought he’d be a museum studies major until he took a fiction class and discovered an outlet for his natural inclination for story. “Our first assignment was to write a story about a memorable character in our family,” he says. “So I started writing ‘A Famous Indian Artist’ based on my uncle. Then I started writing about my dad, my grandma and grandpa. Their characters are all over (Cheyenne Madonna).”

  After IAIA, Chuculate received a coveted Stanford Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a two-year program where promising writers study with renowned authors. “Here I am with these illustrious authors and people in my class way more advanced than I was,” he says. “So I took my lumps in workshop.” But eight years later, in 2007, he won the PEN/O. Henry Prize for “Galveston Bay, 1826,” a story about Cheyenne adventurers who travel to the Pacific Ocean for the first time and encounter a hurricane. Now he’s finishing up an MFA in creative writing from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

  In his writing, Chuculate pays precise attention to detail and landscape. In a moment of reverie on the Hopi reservation (where he’s stuck in tribal jail), Jordan, the narrator of “Dear Shorty,” says: “I was thinking how the sky and the high-desert terrain looked just like it did around Glorieta as you rode the train through the Sangre de Cristos heading toward Denver: clumps of juniper and sage underneath a magnified blue sky where everything was sharp and etched in clear lines.” That Chuculate chooses to set his stories in places like Hopi, Ariz. — a place both familiar (Hopi land is in the middle of the Navajo reservation) and foreign to me — is exhilarating. I’ve seen the historical tensions between Navajo and Hopi — old disputes over land and water — play out today in local politics and even in high school athletics. As teenagers, when we made the three-hour bus ride from our hometown on the Navajo Nation to the land of mesa-top villages for basketball games and cross-country meets, we’d eat certain herbs for protection.

  The Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie once said that when she began to write stories, “all my characters were white and blue-eyed and played in the snow.” So it was a revelation to her that she could write about people she knew in a Nigerian setting. From the beginning, Chuculate set his stories in places outside of mainstream America. But he gives the stories no special treatment — doesn’t artificially draw attention to their differentness, just gives them a writer’s attention. He portrays a contemporary Native America unburdened by romantic mystique, or even by the Native writers who came before him.

  His next book will be a novel about black-Indian relations in Oklahoma. Jordan will return, as will a few other characters from the pages of Cheyenne Madonna. Chuculate’s first book took 15 years to finish, but lately, in Santa Fe, he’s been more productive. “I feel I write my best out here. I feel more at home. I don’t really write well in Iowa or Oklahoma anymore. The West somehow got into my blood.”

  Advertisement
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  This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The West in my blood.

• Wikipedia -

  Eddie Chuculate

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  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Eddie Chuculate
  Born
  1978 (age 45–46)
  Claremore, Oklahoma, U.S.
  Occupation
  Writer and editor
  Nationality
  Muscogee Creek Nation
  Genre
  Literary fiction
  Eddie Chuculate (born 1978) is an American fiction writer who is enrolled in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and of Cherokee descent.[1][2] He earned a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University. His first book is Cheyenne Madonna. For his short story, Galveston Bay, 1826, Chuculate was awarded the O. Henry Award. In 2010 World Literature Today featured Chuculate as the journal's "Emerging Author."

  Background
  Chuculate was born in Claremore, Oklahoma, in 1978 but grew up primarily in Muskogee, Oklahoma. He worked as a newspaper sports writer for nine years and a copy editor for ten. He later earned a degree in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts and held a two-year Wallace Stegner Fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University.[3][4] In 2010 he was admitted to the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he graduated with a master's degree in 2013.[5]

  Career
  Author
  Chuculate wrote Voices at Dawn: New Work from the Institute of American Indian Arts 1995-1996.[6]

  His story, Yoyo was published by The Iowa Review[5][7] and it received a Pushcart Prize citation.[citation needed]

  Chuculate won a PEN / O. Henry Award in 2007 for his story, Galveston Bay, 1826.[5] In it, four Cheyenne people encounter the ocean for the first time when they travel to the Gulf of Mexico, experiencing a "cataclysmic journey" on their way. Ursula K. Le Guin, a short-story writer and novelist, was one of the jurors and she wrote an essay about her favorite piece. She said Chuculate's story "won me first, and last, by surprising me: every sentence unexpected, yet infallible. On rereading, both qualities remain... The calm, beautiful, unexplaining accuracy of description carries us right through the madness of the final adventure."[8] Chuculate's stories have appeared in Manoa, Ploughshares,[9] Blue Mesa Review, Many Mountains Moving and The Kenyon Review.[5] In the July / August 2010 edition of World Literature Today, Chuculate was featured as the journal's "Emerging Author."[10]

  His first book of fiction, Cheyenne Madonna, was published in July 2012.[11] It is about a young Creek/Cherokee man who writes home to his father as he wanders the Southwest. Joy Harjo, a Creek poet, says that it "investigates the broken-heart nation of Indian men. The epicenter of action is the tenuous meeting place between boyhood and manhood, between fierce need and desire."[4] The seven stories follow the life of Jordan Coolwater, who leaves Oklahoma and goes West to pursue a sculpting career, all the while battling the two constants in his life: alcohol and art. The stories also explore history, myth, interracial relationships, racism and father-son relationships.[citation needed] On July 19, 2010, Publishers Weekly review stated, "Chuculate writes forthright prose in a somber key, examining without judgment the lives of Native American characters. ... Memory and will converge here to powerful effect."[12]

  "Dear Shorty" from the book is also published in Road to Nowhere and Other New Stories from the Southwest.[13]

  Journalist
  Chuculate has worked at The Tulsa World, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Denver Post and The Manhattan Mercury.[8][14] He is an editor for the Trillium Literary Journal.[15]

  Educator
  Chuculate is on the faculty of Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver.[16]

• Native Arts & Cultures Foundation - https://www.nativeartsandcultures.org/eddie-chuculate

  Eddie Chuculate
  11 years ago
  2014 National Artist Fellowship
  Author Eddie Chuculate (Muscogee Creek) was awarded a 2014 NACF Artist Fellowship in Literature.

  Grantee: Eddie Chuculate
  Native Citizenship: Muscogee (Creek)/Cherokee
  Location: Muskogee, Okla.
  Award: 2014 NACF Artist Fellowship
  Discipline: Literature
  Web Site: O. Henry Prize Stories

  Writer Eddie Chuculate was honored with a 2014 NACF Artist Fellowship in Literature celebrating the gritty, deceptively simple stories he writes, portraying America, its dispossessed, its outlaws and its visionaries.

  Black Sparrow Books published Cheyenne Madonna, a collection of short stories from the life of a Native man that begins with the story of his ancestor outrunning a hurricane. O. Henry prize juror Ursula K. Le Guin selected the opening story, “Galveston Bay, 1826,” as her favorite in the collection. Chuculate wrote while working as editor at newspapers in Tulsa, Albuquerque, Denver and Abu Dhabi. Universities across the country including the University of Arizona, Pennsylvania State and the University of Oklahoma include his work in their literature courses.

  The award-winning author studied creative writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts and held a Wallace Stegner creative writing fellowship at Stanford University. He earned a master’s degree at the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop. Among other writing projects, a NACF Artist Fellowship in Literature will support his work on a novel about a family struggling to resolve their citizenship status as members of a Native Nation.

• Glass Literary Management - https://glassliterary.com/authors/chuculate-eddie/

  Eddie Chuculate
  Eddie Chuculate is an American fiction writer of Muscogee (Creek) and Cherokee descent. He received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. Chuculate won a PEN/O. Henry Award for his story, “Galveston Bay, 1826,” which became the centerpiece of his acclaimed first book, the story collection Cheyenne Madonna. Chuculate’s stories have appeared in Manoa, Ploughshares, the Iowa Review, Blue Mesa Review, Many Mountains Moving, and The Kenyon Review. He also earned a degree in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts and held a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University. His next book, a memoir for young adult readers titled This Indian Kid, is due from Scholastic Focus in 2023.

Eddie Chuculate. Cheyenne Madonna. Boston: Black Sparrow Press, 2010. 160 pp. Paper, $17.95.

The debut collection of short stories by Eddie Chuculate, a Creek and Cherokee Indian, begins as a quest experienced from Old Bull and his party of three other Cheyenne to see this much-heard-of "Great LakE." A series of fantastical events leaves Old Bull as the sole survivor, warranting "all that had happened" with a single piece of evidence, a shark-tooth necklace. This opening story marks the starting point to a sinuous journey that eventually intertwines with another sole survivor, Jordan Coolwater, over a century later. Although not as memorable as other characters in the collection, Coolwater is likeable purely through the pathos of his situation. He is essentially an orphan raised by his grandparents. This orphan status is quite comparable to the labeling of federally recognized tribes as wards of the state when Chief Justice John Marshall deemed them "domestic dependent nations" in 1831. Consequently, Chuculate focuses on this centralized theme throughout the collection, and as each story unfolds, the audience is provided with more illustrative evidence, ever confirming the conflict between Indigenous sovereignty and colonial paradigms--still battling as strongly as Shorty, the most crafted character, fiercely manifests his "pimp walk." If the audience is looking for answers to this challenging theme, they will find none. What the audience will find is a deeper point of view of contemporary Indigenous life, unfortunately stemming from archetypical characters. The thread of movement consistent with all the characters, through both physical and mental desertion, is indicative of U.S. Federal Indian Policy, specifically the allotment, relocation, and termination eras. The three stories that focus on Coolwater as a preteen remain the most compelling. The lithe and speculative approach of a youthful narrator is heartening in his observations dealing with the adults wandering in and out of his life and his African American neighbors and friends. Chuculate openly discusses the brazen displays of racial slurs--directly connected to the numbing effects of internalized colonialism, as Coolwater laments, "I felt that was my chance to apologize for my uncle, right some sort of wrong, to say he really didn't mean it, but of course he had meant it." This tepid ambivalence is the intersection where Chuculate may lose his audience. Although the collection ends with a slight glimmer of transformation in Coolwater's character, that does not satisfy the audience's desire for more than the implied change from a tousled preteen boy into an adult, at least mildly reflective of his past--both immediate and ancestral. Without that consideration, the series unravels and tentatively manifests simply as a glimpse of unique dialogue and details conveyed by Indigenous characters. However, the collection is noted for its stark revealing glare, a microscopic lens exposing the human soul, unveiling the mythic and fabricated constructs within.

Esther Belin, Fort Lewis College

Belin, Esther

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 University of Nebraska Press
http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/
Source Citation
Source Citation
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Belin, Esther. "Eddie Chuculate. Cheyenne Madonna." The American Indian Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 3, summer 2011, p. 467. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A264920911/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a4a1d3ba. Accessed 14 June 2024.

Cheyenne Madonna: Stories

Eddie Chuculate. Godine/Black Sparrow, $17.95 (160p) ISBN 978-1-57423-216-5

In seven interconnected stories Native American author Chuculate pursues the painful self-discovery of a half-Cherokee youth trying to distance himself from his family's chronic drinking, impoverishment, and racism. In "YoYo," Jordon, the dreamy protagonist of most of the stories, finds his myopic world abruptly pried open by the appearance of an older, and dazzlingly fast, black girl named YoYo. In "A Famous Indian Artist," Jordon describes the disintegration of his admiration for his uncle, Johnson Freebird, the only relative he has who has lived a creative life. In "Dear Shorty," Jordon depicts his alcoholic father, Shorty, in shockingly unsparing and unsentimental terms; after first following disastrously in his footsteps, Jordon achieves stature as an artist, yet continues to try to connect with his father, even after it's too late. Chuculate writes forthright prose in a somber key, examining without judgment the lives of Native American characters like Old Bull, a Cheyenne who, in "Galveston Bay, 1826," the collection's one stand-alone story, ventures out to see the ocean for the first time, only to get savaged by a hurricane. Memory and will converge here to powerful effect. (Sept.)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2010 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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"Cheyenne Madonna: Stories." Publishers Weekly, vol. 257, no. 28, 19 July 2010, p. 114. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A233050304/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6ded94f3. Accessed 14 June 2024.

Chuculate, Eddie CHEYENNE MADONNA Black Sparrow/Godine (Adult Fiction) $17.95 9, 9 ISBN: 978-1-57423-216-5

Seven linked stories dip in and out of the life of a Native American, a talented artist when he's not drinking.

Chuculate's debut starts out well. For some historical/cultural perspective, he shows us four Cheyennes, thrilled by their discovery of the Gulf of Mexico. "Galveston Bay, 1826" is punchy and resonant. The next story ("YoYo"), set in 1970s Oklahoma, introduces the future artist, Jordan Coolwater. He's in seventh grade, living in a small town with his impoverished grandparents. They have new neighbors, well-to-do black professionals. Their daughter YoYo is a sassy track star. She and Jordan hit it off. Class, race, prejudice, puberty-Chuculate finesses it all beautifully. Then come superficial character sketches of two uncles. Uncle Tony ("Winter, 1979") is a vicious racist; Johnson L. Freebird ("A Famous Indian Artist") is a hard-drinking blowhard. Neither story finds its rhythm. The longest story in this slim collection is "Dear Shorty," a rambling account of Jordan's relationship with his father. Shorty is a far-gone alcoholic, a barber before he got the shakes and his wife left him. Jordan's now a young man, with a joshing, nonjudgmental attitude toward Shorty. Ironically, their only bond is the bottle: "You can trace the progression of alcoholism in my family like a flying arrow and I'm the bull's-eye." A story that should have kept a tight focus on father and son veers off into Jordan's troubles with the law and his escape from an Indian Detention Center. The focus in "Under the Red Star of Mars" is on Jordan's future wife, Lisa Old Bull, about to ditch her abusive black boyfriend. Jordan, who's selling everything at his breakthrough show, is a welcome contrast. In the title story, they're married, but their baby is stillborn; Lisa leaves him and, in an ominous echo of Shorty's affliction, the "tremors" stop Jordan painting and sculpting.

The inherent drama of an artist and his hereditary demons is muffled in this poorly organized work.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2010 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Chuculate, Eddie: CHEYENNE MADONNA." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Aug. 2010. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A256560877/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=71d3b406. Accessed 14 June 2024.

Chuculate, Eddie THIS INDIAN KID Scholastic Focus (Teen None) $19.99 9, 19 ISBN: 9781338802085

This memoir by award-winning author Chuculate (Muscogee Creek) is a testament to the importance of support from family and friends in shaping identity.

This work is largely centered on Muskogee, Oklahoma, during the 1970s in what was a racially mixed community. Chuculate shares episodes from his daily life that readers can reflect on and interpret to draw their own life lessons. These seemingly random memories collectively tell his story of growing up Native in an inclusive environment with white, Black, Native, and Latine friends; his best friend, Lonnie, was Black, and the multiracial environment felt completely ordinary. Growing up, Chuculate spent a great deal of time with his maternal grandparents, Granny and Homer; following his parents' divorce, he barely saw his father. But he was close to his mom and stepdad, Roman (Chickasaw), and his family's guidance provided Chuculate with a loving environment that nurtured him. Hearing Creek spoken by relatives and in church, he was fascinated and wrote down the words he learned. In high school, Chuculate began covering sports for the Muskogee Daily Phoenix, something that sparked his passion for writing and led to his work-study job writing about college athletics. The conversational style and family photographs throughout help bring this intimate, anecdotal memoir to life.

Will make readers feel as if they're sitting beside a relative, listening to stories and shared knowledge. (map, author's note, Q&A with the author) (Nonfiction. 13-18)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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Source Citation
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"Chuculate, Eddie: THIS INDIAN KID." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A756872232/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f9687a24. Accessed 14 June 2024.

This Indian Kid: A Native American Memoir. By Eddie Chuculate. Read by Pascal Casimier. 2023. 5hr. Scholastic, DD (9781339045245). Gr. 8-11.

Casimier's youthful narration of award-winning author Eddie Chuculate's memoir details the challenges Chuculate faced growing up in rural Oklahoma in the 1970s and '80s. He tells his story through a series of childhood memories, and listeners will hear stories informed by Eddie's Creek, Cherokee heritage, and life on a reservation. Eddie was shuffled constantly back and forth between several homes and a variety of adults, yet his impoverished childhood was never without love and support from his family and friends despite constantly changing schools, sometimes multiple times in a year. Eddie s love of baseball translated well to his eventual career as a sports journalist, and later as an author. Eddie authentically details his experience with racism in his youth and encourages listeners not to conform to outdated ideas and attitudes from others. Music swells at the beginning and end of the audiobook. Casimier's narration is approachable and uplifting, consistendy paced and frankly delivered.--Alex Richey

YA Recommendations

Adult titles recommended for teens are marked with the following symbols: YA, for books of general YA interest; YA/C, for books with particular curricular value; and YA/S, for books that will appeal most to teens with a special interest in a specific subject.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 American Library Association
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Richey, Alex. "This Indian Kid: A Native American Memoir." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 12, 15 Feb. 2024, p. 87. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A783436553/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=bf3f775a. Accessed 14 June 2024.

CHUCULATE, Eddie. This Indian Kid: A Native American Memoir. 240p. Scholastic Focus. Sept. 2023. Tr $19.99. ISBN 9781338802085.

Gr 7 Up--This autobiography takes a full circle journey through the childhood of author Chuculate. It is a portrait of growing up Native American in Middle America during the 1970s and 1980s. Chuculate finds himself wandering the pastures of his grandparents' rural Oklahoma farm "in habitual solitude" for much of his childhood. His young life is split enjoying the space and freedom of the Muskogee countryside and in town with his mother and stepfather. A love of sports and good mentorship guide Chuculate through middle school and into high school. He excels at writing and finds his way into journalism at the Muskogee Phoenix. With help from his coach Branan, he is recruited to Oklahoma's Northeastern State University. Overall, the characters are described in everyday circumstances from fishing and baseball to library visits and church service. Reading this memoir feels like sitting around the dinner table hearing about a relative's day. It explores themes of racism, poverty, and bullying, helping connect young readers to a story set in the past. VERDICT A good addition to any teen nonfiction collection.--Meaghan Nichols

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
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Nichols, Meaghan. "CHUCULATE, Eddie. This Indian Kid: A Native American Memoir." School Library Journal, vol. 69, no. 11, Nov. 2023, p. 74. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A773080487/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=e815e5c3. Accessed 14 June 2024.

Belin, Esther. "Eddie Chuculate. Cheyenne Madonna." The American Indian Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 3, summer 2011, p. 467. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A264920911/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a4a1d3ba. Accessed 14 June 2024. "Cheyenne Madonna: Stories." Publishers Weekly, vol. 257, no. 28, 19 July 2010, p. 114. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A233050304/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6ded94f3. Accessed 14 June 2024. "Chuculate, Eddie: CHEYENNE MADONNA." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Aug. 2010. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A256560877/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=71d3b406. Accessed 14 June 2024. "Chuculate, Eddie: THIS INDIAN KID." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A756872232/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f9687a24. Accessed 14 June 2024. Richey, Alex. "This Indian Kid: A Native American Memoir." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 12, 15 Feb. 2024, p. 87. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A783436553/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=bf3f775a. Accessed 14 June 2024. Nichols, Meaghan. "CHUCULATE, Eddie. This Indian Kid: A Native American Memoir." School Library Journal, vol. 69, no. 11, Nov. 2023, p. 74. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A773080487/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=e815e5c3. Accessed 14 June 2024.

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