The Education of Little Tree
I keep learning interesting literary tidbits from Garrison Keillor’s daily radio bit, The Writer’s Almanac. Today’s story was particularly interesting.
It’s the birthday of Asa Earl Carter, who wrote under the pseudonym Forrest Carter, (books by this author) born in Anniston, Alabama (1925). The Education of Little Tree was published in 1976, a memoir by Forrest Carter about his childhood raised by his Cherokee grandparents, who called the boy Little Tree. The book started out slowly, but it got great reviews, became a Book-of-the-Month Club pick, and everyone called it a new classic of Native American Literature. Sales increased steadily, and in 1991, it won the American Booksellers Book of the Year Award and spent weeks on the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list.
But there was a problem. The New York Times Forrest Carter was actually Asa Earl Carter, who was not only not Native American, he was a racist and a segregationist. Asa Earl had been a Ku Klux Klan leader, started a monthly publication about white supremacy, and wrote speeches for Governor George Wallace — Carter is credited with the famous speech “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” He ran for governor in 1970, convinced that Wallace was too moderate on the race issue, but he lost. After that, he left Alabama forever, and he renamed himself Forrest Carter, after Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Civil War General and an original leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
After it came out that Forrest Carter was actually Asa Earl Carter, Oprah took The Education of Little Tree off her recommended reading, the Times moved it to the fiction list, and the book’s publisher, the University of New Mexico, dropped the subtitle “A True Story,” and it took out the biography on the book that said Carter “was known as ‘Storyteller in Council’ to the Cherokee Nations. … His Indian friends always shared a part of his earnings from his writing.”
But otherwise, not much changed. The book is still regularly taught in schools as a lesson in tolerance. It certainly asks us to decide whether what we know about the author of a book changes how we think about that book.
September 4th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I loved that book. It doesn’t add up to me how someone who was a racist, a segregationist, a Ku Klux Klan leader and a white supremacist could write this book. It just doesn’t make sense. It makes me wonder what the rest of the story is.
September 4th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Michael,
Yes, I wonder if he really felt this change of heart or of there was some other stranger reason for writing this book. On one hand, Wallace’s history is one way of understanding if he had a change of heart. But bigotry dies hard. It took Wallace getting shot for him to finally see the light.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:54 am
This book….well its a good story but really I dont think it was made to really be understood by this generation. An I loved this book because it tells a bunch of this about the Indian lives back then an how they lived. Lil tree was older than he really was in the story like he acted older than 5 because he was alway around older people.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:57 am
I think that even though this guy did some bad things you should not judge him for that I dont care what this guy has done. I think the book is great even though he lied, who cares, the book is still good so dont be so harsh on the guy.
October 21st, 2009 at 10:06 am
Hi I’m Ernan Yanez – Moreno and I think that the book of ( The Education Of Little Tree ) is amazing because, it tells tou how the life of Little tree changes when his grand parents come and pick him up to take him to live with him and while he is growing he learns how to do many things that his grandpa does like an everyday life thing. but when he turns seven it turns into a year of death because, all of is most loved people start to die the first one to die is Willow John then Grandpa dies and the only one remaining and she also dies and Little tree is left alone in this mean world.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:36 am
I didnt like the story at first because it was boring but when it started to get some action I liked it. The guy that wrote it did some bad stuff, but it is ok, maybe if he writes another book it will be good. He should not have used an alias, maybe he learned his lesson. Maybe when the guy was a kid he got lectured, he maybe wrote about it the book. I am rating this book a 6 between 1-10. Thank you.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:43 am
I think tha book is good and you shouldn’t judge the author about his beliefs (no matter how stupid!). He’s a good author and he changed his name so people would read it and not judge him. Oprah didnt even know it was him. But the book is good, and its about an Indian boy who thinks and talks like the people he hangs out with and he learns to be like an Indian.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:46 am
This book is very hard to deal with if you know the truth about the writer. This writer made others feel bad for him and the truth was he didn’t even like the other races. Finding this out affected my view on the author. It seems like he wrote this book just to get credit because the thing is that he was a leader of the KKK and that is not okay. I do not relate with this man. I am not a racist and I feel that everyone should be treated the same no matter what their race is.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
I think that the auther is a 2-face
I dont know how he can be in the 
KKK 
and write this book 
And the auther stank 
Why could he not of just said its easy to hate but its harder to love me, yall dont understand yall quicky to judge me put your foot in my nikes picture you living my life 
…………………… And dont hate appreciate 
……………………………..BYE
April 22nd, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Wow im havinq to read this book for my advanced class at dalton hiqh school with mrs.qaylon as a freshman. & boy do i hate this book and her !