Process Talk: Cynthia Leitich Smith Discusses On A Wing and a Tear
Indian Shoes by Cynthia Leitich Smith was one of the books I used to make my students read to get a feel for a story that was about more than one kid. A story, in fact, that was more than one story. It was a set of interlinked tales about family and community and connections and a whole way of being in the world. So, when I found out that Ray Halfmoon and Grampa were going to make a grand return in this new book, I thought I knew where I was going. I should have known better.
On a Wing and a Tear delivers the same family warmth and loving humor that is so endearing in Indian Shoes but oh, my! This is a book with layers—history, adventure, humor, and perhaps the most marvelous of all, there's a whole wonderful animal storyline. This middle grade novel is packed with satisfying familiarity and delightful surprises. I asked Cyn to tell me more.
[Uma] When and how did all those layers come to be part of this novel? Lift the cover off the back of that story truck for me.
“Native family and community relationships tend to be widely extended. Writing a cast reflective of that dynamic in a book for the very young demands deft brushstrokes. ”
[Cynthia] On a Wing and a Tear is a story born from previous stories. Ray and Grampa Halfmoon were introduced in Indian Shoes, an early chapter-book collection of daily life short stories, set largely in Chicago with a homecoming entry set in Cherokee Nation. They returned to the page in “Between the Lines,” a short story that appeared in the upper MG anthology Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids, wherein our heroes meet Melanie “Mel” Roberts and her mom at the Dance for Mother Earth powwow in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Creating a household of those four characters flowed naturally. Mel’s mom is an adjunct professor, a notoriously underpaid position. Grampa is retired Army on a fixed income. The Roberts renting out the Halfmoons’ attic makes sense for everyone and creates a multigenerational and intertribal household.
My previous middle-grade novel was Sisters of the Neversea, which is a reimagining of J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy or Peter Pan that centers the girls and Native people of Neverland in a modern narrative with an Indigenous sensibility. It made sense to me to lean into English/European literary conventions for that book—sort of meet Barrie on his own playing field.It was an enjoyable and cathartic creative experience. However, it also made me long for more books that drew on Native oral and written storytelling traditions and sensibilities.
Circling back to my first title, Jingle Dancer, readers may remember that Jenna’s great-aunt Sis tells the story of Bat and the Great Ballgame, which makes the point that little ones can make all the difference. Inspired in part by the modern folklore of Navajo children’s novelist Brian Young, I wondered what might happen if Bat (and a few more animal characters) found himself at the Halfmoon bungalow.
Meanwhile, I was thinking a lot about what home means, especially to Native people.
The Cherokee, Seminole, and Muscogee reflected by the characters were forcibly removed from the southeast to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, so our reservations aren’t located on our original ancestral lands. As in Indian Shoes, Grampa and Ray go home to their rez regularly, and Mel (who’s also Odawa) has recently moved to Chicago from Michigan. Mel’s parents are newly divorced, and she’s adjusting to her broken, blending, and healing family dynamics. One parent in one place, one in another, and then, as a Muscogee-Odawa, tribal nations that are home, too.
Cynthia Leitich Smith, 2021 NSK Neustadt Prize Laureate
[Uma] Coming at this from the viewpoint of character, Ray's in middle school now, so it makes sense to widen his world and add nuance and complexity to it. Can you talk about how you grew this story from what you knew already of these characters?
[Cynthia] As you can imagine, I combed through Ray’s previous appearances for character traits, keeping in mind that he’s a little older now and interacting with a wider set of characters and situations. Indian Shoes reveals that he’s a baseball player and Cubs fan, an emerging visual artist, and a caretaker for a ferret named Bandit. His parents died when he was a baby, and he’s something of a miracle survivor of the tornado that took their lives. He knows them only through stories that give him strength but also create longing.
Ray is empathetic, having traded his prized high-tops for a pair of moccasins to cheer up his homesick grandfather in the titular story “Indian Shoes” from the chapter-book collection. He has a deep love of animals and history as a neighborhood pet sitter. That’s a solid start. Plus, I met him as a middle schooler in “Between the Lines,” which is essentially the origin story of his best friendship with Mel.
From the start, Mel was more of an introvert, more uptight, and slightly suspicious, in part because of the family trauma from her parents’ split. But like Ray, she’s respectful of her Elders and views them as a source of knowledge, perspective, and comfort. She’s the new kid at school but essentially living as a sibling-cousin with Ray, who grew up there and is a literal team player, which helps smooth her transition.
Grampa and Mel’s mom are both retired from the military, and they met in “Between the Lines” as participants in a film project focused on Native veterans. So, the families have a lot in common and mesh together well.
There’s a sweetness to these characters—even Mel and her cat, who’re occasionally prickly. Their conflicts are within each of them and in relationship to the outside world. As a family unit, they’re healthy, loving, and supportive. On the same page, you might say!
[Uma] On the same page, yes! I sensed that as I read. These interrelated families felt to me like widening and overlapping circles, and I got the feeling as I read that you write this way for a reason. Then I came to the back matter, and it nearly made me cry. Did you always know you'd work this way? Can you tell me how your thinking evolved to create these patterns of resonance, so that each character, and each book, holds hands with another?
[Cynthia] Mvto/thank you. So far, Rain, originally from Rain Is Not My Indian Name, appears in four of my books, which has given her a heightened three-dimensionality. Readers have written to say they’re proud or wowed by how she’s grown or that they consider her a friend. I love that. Book friends are always there for us.
As for my interconnected literary landscape, I had hopes! The industry has been bumpy terrain for those of us who’re expanding the variety of stories and heroes, but our champions are determined, diligent, and making gains.
Native family and community relationships tend to be widely extended. Writing a cast reflective of that dynamic in a book for the very young demands deft brushstrokes. Otherwise, it’s too many characters for a new novel reader to track in a meaningful way. Revisiting the characters over multiple narratives is a solution.
Beyond that, we all grow up with certain fictional characters through repeated exposure. For a light-hearted example, I’m an R2-D2 fan. Artoo has been part of my life since 1977. Last night, I watched the LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special, and I enjoyed my time with the droid as if reunited with a long-time dear friend. I feel the same way about Wonder Woman and Spider-Man and other characters who’ve been an ongoing part of my life. I know them, their friends and family members, their goals and priorities, where they’re from—as much, if not more, than most real-life people I’ve encountered.
When it comes to Native characters, I didn’t have those touchstones from childhood on. Native kids don’t have Native fictional touchstones that reflect that aspect of themselves. Or at least they haven’t. That’s starting to change for the better, and I hope my work—from picture books to YA novels—is part of the progress.
[Uma] And finally, the interweaving of stories turns the narrative into something nonlinear, reaching back and forward in time. How do you see the relationship between land and time in what seems at first to be a contemporary road trip?
[Cynthia] Place is affixed, though what “home” means is complex and layered. A long, storied road trip to one’s ancestral home is a literally grounding, healing experience for my heroes, especially Melanie and Great-grandfather Bat. But time is slippery. We’re all constantly living in the past—in memory that informs every step, every breath in the present (do you feel it? Are you here… there?)—and the future, through hopes, dreams, and even anxieties. We hear, “honor the past,” “live in the present,” “prepare for the future,” as though they can be spliced into three parts when we’re dancing together through it all, when we’re truly timeless.
[Uma] Cyn, yes indeed! I’ve often thought about place as both fixed and as something one can carry in the heart, but you’re right about time. You’re telling us not to be limited by the artificial truncations imposed upon our understanding. Thank you so, so much, for sharing your thoughts here.
