Oh, siiiiiiiiiiiigh. Since the pub date on this one is 2007, she can maybe get a pass, but THESE IGNORED DETAILS are the main reasons I really struggle with nonfic published before, say, 2015 - there just wasn't a lot of effort with accurate inclusivity for so many authors before then. And, of course, she's just written TONS of nonfiction books that I'd now blanket consider suspect, AND she's an SCBWI mentor (which, honestly, tracks). How disappointing.
Yeah, even accounting for the pub date, the most I poked around, the more incredibly dishonest and gross the whole thing felt. And YES, stuff like this absolutely makes me side-eye the rest of the author's bibliography. Such a bummer.
Oh, Leila - Peary sucks! He's one of the worst - a total ass and definite liar. (He never reached the Pole and honestly got as far as he did only because of Henson & the Inuit guides they had with them).
Also - hard agree with Tanita on the approach the author took here. You could very much write a critical book about Peary that would acknowledge how lousy he was while still telling the story of his daughter. (Does the book mention the many illegitimate children he and his party left behind in the Arctic?)
Nansen and Amundsen both worked at learning the local language (Nansen was more successful on that) and meeting the Inuit as equals. They were both Norwegian though and I think the Americans in particular were just arrogant jerks.
I promise, there are way better books out there and waaaaaay better polar explorers. Personally, I've always preferred the groups that went to the South Pole - the only lives they could destroy were their own.
I have no doubt there are better books out there—I largely picked this one up on a whim due to availability and that sassy picture of Marie I included up top. But yeah, I'd never read anything about Peary, and the more I poke at the topic, the more of an absolute garbagefire that emerges.
He's so terrible - truly truly terrible. I actually took a course in grad school on Polar Exploration and It's Literature which was FANTASTIC! Collectively, we all hated Peary. He has no redeeming features. None.
At the moment, I'm very much wishing I could be in a room of people all complaining about Peary. I've been monologuing at poor Josh all evening, and it's just NOT THE SAME as ranting WITH people.
...also I think he might be tuning me out a little out of self-defense. (Honestly, I can't blame him.)
Oh, siiiiiiiiiiiigh. Since the pub date on this one is 2007, she can maybe get a pass, but THESE IGNORED DETAILS are the main reasons I really struggle with nonfic published before, say, 2015 - there just wasn't a lot of effort with accurate inclusivity for so many authors before then. And, of course, she's just written TONS of nonfiction books that I'd now blanket consider suspect, AND she's an SCBWI mentor (which, honestly, tracks). How disappointing.
Yeah, even accounting for the pub date, the most I poked around, the more incredibly dishonest and gross the whole thing felt. And YES, stuff like this absolutely makes me side-eye the rest of the author's bibliography. Such a bummer.
Oh, Leila - Peary sucks! He's one of the worst - a total ass and definite liar. (He never reached the Pole and honestly got as far as he did only because of Henson & the Inuit guides they had with them).
Also - hard agree with Tanita on the approach the author took here. You could very much write a critical book about Peary that would acknowledge how lousy he was while still telling the story of his daughter. (Does the book mention the many illegitimate children he and his party left behind in the Arctic?)
Nansen and Amundsen both worked at learning the local language (Nansen was more successful on that) and meeting the Inuit as equals. They were both Norwegian though and I think the Americans in particular were just arrogant jerks.
I promise, there are way better books out there and waaaaaay better polar explorers. Personally, I've always preferred the groups that went to the South Pole - the only lives they could destroy were their own.
I have no doubt there are better books out there—I largely picked this one up on a whim due to availability and that sassy picture of Marie I included up top. But yeah, I'd never read anything about Peary, and the more I poke at the topic, the more of an absolute garbagefire that emerges.
He's so terrible - truly truly terrible. I actually took a course in grad school on Polar Exploration and It's Literature which was FANTASTIC! Collectively, we all hated Peary. He has no redeeming features. None.
At the moment, I'm very much wishing I could be in a room of people all complaining about Peary. I've been monologuing at poor Josh all evening, and it's just NOT THE SAME as ranting WITH people.
...also I think he might be tuning me out a little out of self-defense. (Honestly, I can't blame him.)
Have you read much about Peary's wife, Josephine? I can not understand this woman - she had a tragic love for that man....devotion doesn't begin to describe it. https://www.portlandmonthly.com/portmag/2009/02/a-woman-in-full/
Ooo, I have not read anything that focuses directly on her, no. So I'll read this in a quiet moment at work today, thank you!!
Well, THAT sounds infuriating.