Little House on the Prairie books

When discussing the Little House on the Prairie books in class yesterday, I found it very interesting to heard about what others thought about the portrayal of Native Americans in the book. I along with others had never thought twice about the fact that Native Americans were described like animals would be when we were younger and reading the book. It also disturbs me that no one took the time to correct these stereotypes to me. It is for exactly these reasons that people still hold these descriptions to be accurate. This is so damaging to an entire group of people just because there are people that do not want to let go of their childhood memories that they have of these books without even thinking about how it affects others. I am definitely going to be talking to people I know about the problems with these books so that more generations do not go on being ignorant about these books.
I do think they still hold a lot of value but without direction from adults how will children know that these descriptions are not accurate and never were even in the time period it was supposed to have taken place. It is important to helps students know the difference between fact and fantasy and the incredibly false descriptions and pictures created in millions of children's mind's eyes while reading these books.