Talk:The Indian in the Cupboard

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Same story?[edit]

Are you people sure this is the real story? It gets a lot of stuff mixed up. -Purple Pikmin

Yeah, this is bizarre. These are not the stories I read as a kid...

So then, edit it! WP:SOFIXIT

As a fan of the first three (and a saddo who has just bought the "lost" final two), I have to say that that is the same book, but very badly explained.--The Wizard of Magicland 19:31, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is but this is poorly written. And a bit long in the tooth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.233.117.38 (talk) 00:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the same story (I'm guessing as I don't know what you read). However the article was like a poorly written summary

If these are simply poorly written or overly wordy, please trim them. if they are factually inaccurate, rewrite or just substitute the short summaries from the publisher, rewording to avoid copyvio. i trimmed one, but my eyes are glazing over. the pain, the pain. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 06:29, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Little Bear or Little Bull?[edit]

Should the character be referred to as Little Bear or Little Bull? It switches back and forth currently, which is hard to read. --OGoncho (talk) 21:26, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think he should be referred to as Little Bear, after all that is what he was first called. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.134.56.87 (talk) 22:29, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is Little Bear. I have recently read the first four books: they never refer to him as "Little Bull", only as "Little Bear". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.169.150.182 (talk) 02:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on which editions you read, the Avon Camelot paperbacks from the 1990s say Little Bear while, the hardcover ones from the 1990s say Little Bull. Now, I noticed all the new editions seems to say Little Bull in them. This is confusion! 142.166.203.227 (talk) 03:02, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The original American ones, and all the British ones say Little Bull and Twin Stars. This is later changed when the books went through 'Americanizing' in the late 90's and early 2000's.

The names for this article at least have traditionally been Little Bear/Bright Stars. This matches the oldest versions of the book I have found online. If reliable sources can be found which indicate that it was originally Little Bull, feel free to change it, but please cite some reliable sources for the name and name change. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:39, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They are not American books, Lynne Reid Banks is a British author and they are set in Britain. I have an audiobook of the first one, read by the author, which says 'Twin Stars' and "Little Bull'. Surely the author would be reading from her own original copy? George.millman (talk) 15:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that that seems likely, but it's not 100%, and when trying to track it down I came across some british versions which use Little Bear, so I'm fine if you want to change the current usage to be Little Bull/Twin Stars and saying that some editions use Little Bear/Bright Stars if you want to cite the audiobook (like for the first instance of their names), but I don't think we can say for certain that it was originally Little Bull without someone tracking down an actual first edition (or asking the author, which I haven't bothered with yet). VernoWhitney (talk) 15:39, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have listened to audiotapes of the author Lynne Reid Banks narrating the story and she always calls him Little Bull. Did the Americans change his name to Little Bear?Jonathan Markoff (talk) 01:37, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

attempt at cleanup[edit]

ive added some better structure, more info in lead, infobox, and will do more. (whups, i have a life, gotta go). i really think the plot summaries are too long. i will fix the language where necessary, may trim some of the content, would like to trim back more, but i will wait for feedback before severely trimming. its a philosophical thing, as i feel that extensive plot summaries are a violation of the spirit of copyright. i prefer shorter ones, esp. for works that are not part of the canon of literature.(however broadly one defines that)Mercurywoodrose (talk) 16:54, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism[edit]

Sorry, I'm not a heavy Wikipedia user, so format/placement my be wrong - but: given the amount of articles online going back to the early 1990s at least discussing the racism of the portrayal of the Native American character(s), wouldn't a "Criticism" section be appropriate?

(I found plenty of info when googling "Indian in the cupboard criticism"; here's one: http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2006/08/indian-in-cupboard-series-by-lynne.html)

-Ann Burlingham — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ann Burlingham (talk • contribs) 06:21, 17 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your "format/placement" is fine.
Yes there should be a Criticism section. And also more about contemporary Reception (contemporary). This article is rather undeveloped and not worthy of class C (per the banners above). There is not much but Plot summary.
There is too much about the sequels, relative to the meagre attention given to the first book. Probably the first book garnered more attention of all kinds (Reception, use in or recommendation by schools, Criticism).
--P64 (talk) 00:49, 28 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Reviewing The Mystery (book 4) in April 1993, Kirkus mentioned earlier criticism and provided some perspective and wisdom (now quoted in section 1.4, [ref name=kirkus4]).
* "There's not much chance to stereotype Native Americans here, as Banks was charged with earlier, but Jessica Charlotte is certainly a caricature of a music-hall singer; one wonders whether it's reasonable, or merely foolish, to deplore such shorthand in popular fiction."
That is the only Indian/Cupboard review that I find at Kirkus. --P64 (talk) 21:25, 28 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Illustrators, Publishers[edit]

Banks is British. Yet its first edition was American?

Was each volume first published by Doubleday in hardcover? We should try to learn the truth and separately try to be consistent in how we identify Doubleday, Avon, (Harper)Collins, and other publishers. ...

Evidently there were multiple illustrators, at least for the first book.

Note that Robin Jacques is named for a British edition with 1980 date, published by Dent. (The copyright symbols in some of these library records imply that they may be later editions, whose library cataloguing department has not been careful about the possibly different copyright date of illustrations.)

--P64 (talk) 00:53, 28 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

[1]. Numbers of WorldCat member libraries with catalogue records of each volume in chron order: 7542, 4948, 4355, 3932, 2288. (Even 4000 libraries is not usual for the most widely-held work of a children's writer we cover at EN.wiki.) Among her top 20 as there are multiple entries for the first book which sum to more than 10,000; no multiple entries for any of the sequels.
WorldCat library records provide much information about editions but many are incomplete. I added formal references to the WorldCat directories [ref name=w1] to [ref name=w5] and used them generally to identify multiple illustrators for every volume; the first two named are the US and UK first edition illustrators, if i understand correctly. If I understand, skim, and count correctly! there were nine different first illustrators--no repetition except Piers Sanford books 4 and 5 UK editions.
--P64 (talk) 20:57, 28 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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