Colonization and the Wampanoag Story

On Saturday, November 23, from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm at the Mattapoisett Library, the Mattapoisett Museum and the Library co-host Aquinnah Wampanoag scholar, author, and historian Ms. Linda Coombs. She will discuss her book, Colonization and the Wampanoag Story, the process of writing it, and why it is important to teach various perspectives of American history.

It was published in September of 2023, as one of five titles in Penguin Random House’s Race to the Truth series of similarly themed stories intended for middle grades. Other books include Slavery and the African American Story by Patricia Williams Dockery and This Land by Ashley Fairbanks.

Coomb’’s non-fiction book is aimed at educating 7th graders about the Wampanoag perspective of the European colonization of New England and was recently at the center of a controversy in East Texas when a parental school board reclassified it as fiction and moved it from the children’s section to the adult section of the library. Coombs will talk about her reaction to the decision to reclassify her book as fiction and the international backlash it caused. The outrage over the decision gained international news coverage, causing a Texas Court to order the book be returned to its rightful place on the non-fiction shelves.

“To claim this book is fiction dismisses our perspective and history,” said a statement from Debbie Reese, founder of American Indians in Children’s Literature. “Books like Colonization and the Wampanoag Story are important to Native kids because they affirm our existence as Native people in the present day. But they’re also for non-Native kids, because those kids are being shaped by the information in books. This country is better off if we all know history in a more informed way.”

Coombs will be signing and selling copies of part of the Race to the Truth series.