The Education of Little Tree

The Education of Little Tree is a memoir-style fictional novel written under the pseudonym Forrest Carter by Asa Earl Carter. Since its first publication by Delacorte Press in 1976, the book has been the subject of acclaim and controversy, the latter due in part to the author's avowed racism earlier in life. The novel has spawned films, a sequel attempt and a number of graduate theses and scholarly articles. In 1985, the University of New Mexico Press bought the book's rights. It has since sold millions of copies, a rare level of success for a book distributed by an academic press, and won the 1991 American Booksellers Association Book of the Year (ABBY) award.

Plot summary

The fictional memoirs of Forrest "Little Tree" Carter begins in the late 1930s as the protagonist is given over into the care of his Cherokee grandparents, at the age of five years. The book was originally to be called "Me and Grandpa," according to the book's introduction. The story centers on a clever child's relationship with his Scottish-Cherokee grandfather, a man named Wales (an overlap with Carter's other fiction).

The boy's "Indian thinking" 'Granpa' and Cherokee 'Granma' call him 'Little Tree' and teach him about nature, farming, whiskey makin', mountain life, society, love and spirit by a combination of gentle guidance and encouragement of independent experience.

The story takes place largely during the sixth year of the boy's life, as he comes to know his new home in a remote mountain hollow. Granpa runs a small whiskey operation during Prohibition, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. The grandparents and visitors to the hollow expose Little Tree to supposed Cherokee ways and "mountain people" values. Encounters with outsiders, including "the law", "politicians," "guv'mint," city "slickers," and "Christians" of various types add to Little Tree's lessons, each phrased and repeated in catchy ways. (One of the syntactic devices the book uses frequently is to end paragraphs with short opinionated phrases starting with the word 'which,' such as "Which is reasonable.")

The state eventually removes Little Tree to an orphanage, where he stays for a few months. He is "rescued" by an old Indian friend who intimidates the Reverend in charge into allowing Little Tree's release.

Literary, Personal and Political Controversies

The book was part of a blossoming period for Native American memoirs and genre fiction, both before and after it was shown to be a fictional work posing as factual memoir. The controversies and discussions surrounding the story are generally centered on these main areas:

• the clash of the factual details depicted in the book with those of the author's life
• the clash between the cultural descriptions given in the book and traditional values, language and culture, as reported by Cherokee reviewers
• the legitimacy of fictionalized memoirs by a member of a privileged class depicting life within an underprivileged class
• the book's racial sympathies and intentions of the author

These issues are magnified by the author's avowed racism earlier in life. Carter was an active participant in several white supremacist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens' Council. He was also a speechwriter for Alabama Governor George Wallace, for whom he wrote one of Wallace's most infamous statements, "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." Although Carter claimed to be part Cherokee, in 1970 he ran for governor of Alabama on a white supremacist platform.

In the following years, Carter left Alabama, changed his name, and began his second career as an author, taking care to conceal his background. He even claimed categorically in a 1976 New York Times article that he, Forrest, was not Asa Carter.

However, instead of revealing this, the publisher's remarks in the original edition describe him (inaccurately) as "Storyteller in Council" to the Cherokee Nation. When Carter's background was widely publicized in 1991, the book was reclassified by the publisher as fiction. Today, a debate continues as to whether the book's lessons are altered by the identity of the author. As award-winning Native American author Sherman Alexie has said, "Little Tree is a lovely little book, and I sometimes wonder if it is an act of romantic atonement by a guilt-ridden white supremacist, but ultimately I think it is the racial hypocrisy of a white supremacist."

Members of the Cherokee Nation have said that so-called "Cherokee" words and customs in The Education of Little Tree are inaccurate, and that the novel's characters are stereotyped. Several scholars and critics have agreed with this assessment, adding that Carter's treatment of Native Americans plays into the romantic but racist conceit of the "Noble Savage."

When Carter died in 1979 he was working on The Wanderings of Little Tree, a sequel to The Education of Little Tree and on a screenplay version of the book. Twelve years after Carter's death, the fact that Forrest Carter was actually Asa Earl Carter was again exposed (following the original 1976 New York Times expose) by Dan T. Carter, who was a distant cousin and history professor. The supposed autobiographical truth of The Education of Little Tree was revealed to be a hoax.

Despite controversy surrounding the author's identity and legitimacy, The Education of Little Tree was critically acclaimed and won the 1991 American Booksellers Association Book of the Year (ABBY) award. In 1997, The Education of Little Tree was adapted into a made-for-TV movie but was instead given a theatrical release.

In 2007, Oprah Winfrey pulled the book from a list of recommended titles on her web site. While Winfrey had promoted the book on her TV show in 1994, calling the novel "very spiritual," after learning the truth about Carter she said she "had to take the book off my shelf."

External links

• The Education of Little Tree at IMDb
• "The Education of Little Tree" at American Indians in Children's Literature, August 23, 2006
• Where is your copy of The Education of Little Tree? [1]

References

• The Education of Little Tree and Forrest Carter
• Trevenen, Thomas. "Notes on The Education of Little Tree."
• Randall, Dave. "The tall tale of Little Tree and the Cherokee who was really a Klansman