A children's book with a Native American story arc written in 1930 by a white man has all the issues you think it would. And yet I couldn't help but get sucked into the story and fall in love with the characters, despite feeling uncomfortable with Hubbard's tropes. I'm glad I read it as part of my challenge to read through all of the Newbery Honor Books, but I'm afraid I can't really recommend it. Just go read some Louise Erdrich instead. ( )

A 1920s children's book about American Indians can only sound wrong to a 2010s adult. Amusingly Dickensian.

One of eight titles to be chosen as a Newbery Honor Book in 1931 - others include Floating Island, The Dark Star of Itza, Mountains Are Free and Spice and the Devil's Cave - Ralph Hubbard's Queer Person (if ever there were a likely candidate for that humorous send-up of vintage book titles, Scouts in Bondage, this would be it!) follows the story of a little deaf-mute boy who turns up one snowy winter day, out of the blue, in a Pikuni (Peigan Blackfoot Indian) camp in Montana. Believed to be an idiot, and possessed of evil spirits, because of his disabilities, Queer Person, as he is soon named, makes his way from one teepee to another, moving on as he is rejected time after time, until he finally ends up in the ragged lodge of the camp outcast.

Granny (she is given no other name, in the tale) is old and alone, embittered by the loss of her husband and five sons, many years before, and (as the title of the second chapter informs us) loved by no one. Despite her general misanthropy, however, she takes Queer Person in and raises him, eventually coming to believe that he has a great destiny in store, and will become the inheritor of some powerful Medicine. When Chief Big Pipe's young son goes missing, and his lovely daughter Singing Moon is promised to any warrior who can bring him home, Queer Person, whose changing abilities had been kept a secret between himself and Granny this long while, departs on a lone mission to rescue the little boy, finding himself in enemy Crow territory in the process, and undergoing a terrifying trial, through which his true identity is revealed, and his heart's desire won...

I didn't think it was possible to top the offensiveness of titles like The Runaway Papoose (a Newbery Honor Book from 1929), with its condescendingly nonsensical speech patterns, its "fear thoughts" and "laugh things;" or The Great Quest (a Newbery Honor Book from 1922), with its "accidental" slave voyage to Africa, and its blame the victim mentality, but that just goes to show you that things can always be worse! Ralph Hubbard's Queer Person is an interesting case, in some ways, because it does present an engaging story, one in which the outcast makes good, overcoming his disability (a problematic concept, I know, but then, people are always being "cured" of various crippling ailments, in vintage children's fare) and the prejudice of others, to accomplish great things. I enjoy stories like that, and if this were set in some fantasy world, I'd have no problem. Unfortunately, it's set right here, in the USA, and when Hubbard describes the Pikuni children as "copper midgets," I wince. When he describes his hero as "every inch a savage," despite his instinctive recoiling from the murder of children (unlike all his cultural compatriots, obviously), I grit my teeth. But when he goes so far as to insert an inaccurate and offensive depiction of one of the most sacred aspects of native Plains life, one that is - to the best of my knowledge - completely untrue, then I've reached the end of my rope!

Did you know that non-native outsiders have been told not to attend many traditional Sun Dances, by Native American leaders, because they apparently don't know how to show respect for the religious customs of others? I didn't, until I went to investigate Hubbard's depiction of a Crow Sun Dance, which Queer Person interrupts, in his quest to rescue little Sun Pipe. I can't say it surprises me, sadly. What does surprise me, however, is that one of the only other online reviews I could find, of Queer Person (and that done by a librarian, in recent years!), praises Hubbard's clear understanding of "the world view of the Plains Indians," and his "brutal honesty" in depicting the same, but makes absolutely no mention of the historical inaccuracy of having human sacrifice (involving a child) appear in a Sun Dance ceremony! Brutal honesty? More like brutal delusions! This reviewer celebrates the fact that Hubbard was writing before the dreaded rise of political correctness. For my part, I deplore that Hubbard was writing in a period when there was no expectation that authors addressing native themes would take any pains to tell the truth.

As far as I am aware, and I have spent the better part of the last few days, since finishing this book, trying to find evidence to the contrary, the only native people north of the Rio Grande to practice human sacrifice was the Pawnee (although it's possible that the early pre-contact Iroquois did as well). Certainly, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the Plains Indians (of any stripe) used child sacrifice as part their diverse Sun Dance rituals. That Hubbard includes such a practice, in his story, tells me that he is using the old "Noble Savage/Ignoble Savage" storyline, and my objections have nothing to do with political correctness, and everything to do with a) a belief in telling the truth, and b) a desire to show respect (as far as it is possible, without violating my own core beliefs) for the traditions of others. Bah! I cannot say that this story has no merit, as a story, but the inclusion of this falsehood - and it is a big one! - means that even if everything else about the story were unobjectionable (not the case), I couldn't recommend it. This one is for Newbery completists only! With my sympathies... ( )