Ick

A few minutes ago, a kid shows me her summer reading assignment. One of her books is Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims and she's having trouble finding it. The catalog has it checked in so we go out to the shelves together. It turns out that what we have on the shelf is an earlier edition of the book which bears the title, Squanto, Friend of the White Man. Someone has written the updated title on the title page of the book with a red ball point pen. The cover is unchanged. How gross. One Amazon reviewer says,

This book, although a resource used in many classrooms across the United States, has been overused. This book has an improper representation of the history of Squanto's life. Research has not been done at all in the development of this book. The way in which the author portrays Squanto is very poor as well. This book was written in 1954, a time in which the idea of what an Indian was supposed to be was stereotypical. Squanto is portrayed as unable to speak proper English even after 9 years in England. I would not recommend that this book be used in the classroom unless it is to address the stereotypical view of Indians. There are more recent publications that are much more suitable for reading.
For a book with accurate historical information and reference items in the back of the book, see Joseph Bruchac's Squanto's Journey.
If I could give a rating of zero, I would.

If any of this has been cleaned up a bit in later editions, I'm sure our copy does not reflect this. Like I said, gross.