literature

Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas, with the sad news that it is time to wrap up our  2021 Spring Read “Cultures in a Common Land.”  To think of the people, places, and ideas we’ve experienced by reading together since January through April is impressive.  I’ve been thumbing through the books and listening again to the Book Bytes on HPPR’s website, and I’ve recognized some personal growth, as I seem to experience, whenever I return home, after a good travel.

Thank you for joining us on the High Plains Public Radio Station. My name is Jessica Sadler and I am a Science Teacher and STEAM facilitator in Olathe, Kansas. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder by Kent Nerburn. This is a powerful story written by a white man, with the content supplied by a Native Elder. Their journey takes place by traveling to many different locations enlightening the author and reader along the way.

I’m Mike Strong from Hays for HPPR, Radio Reader’s Book Club.  The book is “Neither Wolf Nor Dog” by Kent Nerburn. On occasion I think of this book as “The Excellent Adventures of Dan and George - with Nerburn.” Kent Nerburn, the author, tells his own “swimmer out of the swimming pool” story as he is educated by Dan and George in Native representations.

Dan, in particular is instructing, Nerburn, a writer who is not of Dan’s nation, how to think about and see Native America.

Hi, I am Phillip Periman from Amarillo, Texas and I am one of the discussants for the HPPR Reader’s book club. This spring we are reading “Neither Wolf nor Dog” by Kent Nerburn. This is a book I would never have bought except that it was chosen for this year’s read. Once I started reading it, I could not put it down. Nerburn provides a griping poignant look into the mind and heart of the American Indian. In doing this he shows us a rich and meaningful culture and tradition that we destroyed and lost as we settled and took the country away from its original inhabitants.

Hi, I’m Valerie a radio reader from Topeka and I’m in the middle of reading Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads by an Indian Elder by Kent Nerburn. This book is part of HPPR’s radio readers book club with the theme cultures in common.

This is the High Plains Public Radio Reader’s Book Club, and my name is Freddy Gipp.

I am born and raised in Lawrence, KS and currently head a small community development firm called Lead Horse LLC. I am an enrolled member of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, my Indian name is “T’san T’hoop A’hn, meaning “Lead Horse” in the Kiowa Language, and I graduated from the University of Kansas in 2016 with a degree in strategic communications from the William Allen White School of Journalism.

Hello Radio Readers. This is Maria Melendez Kelson, a writer and writing teacher at Dodge City Community College in southwest Kansas. The parts of the book Neither Wolf Nor Dog I got most excited about are where women show up and seize the spotlight. This doesn’t happen often.

This 1994 book based on true events is by a man, writer and teacher Kent Nerburn, about a man, a Lakota elder who simply goes by Dan, who has asked for Nerburn’s help to write up his recollections and impressions about life as an Indian in contemporary America.

Hi, I’m Marcy McKay from Amarillo, author of Amazon’s #1 Hot New Release, When Life Feels Like a House Fire: Transforming Your Stress. I’m excited to be a Radio Reader for High Plains Public Radio’s Book Club.

Neither Wolf nor Dog is a quiet, thought-provoking story about an Indian elder named Dan who summons white author, Kent Nerburn, to tell the story of his people. The dance between the two personalities and cultures is fantastic, and worthy to have won the 1996 Minnesota Book Award.

Thank you for joining us on the High Plains Public Radio Station. My name is Jessica Sadler and I am a Science Teacher and STEAM facilitator in Olathe, Kansas. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder by Kent Nerburn. This is a powerful story written by a white man, with the content supplied by a Native Elder. Their journey takes place by traveling to many different locations enlightening the author and reader along the way.

This is Leslie VonHolten of Lawrence, Kansas, with another HPPR Radio Readers Book Byte.
I’ll admit to initially being distracted, and even quite annoyed, by Kent Nerburn, the author of Neither Wolf nor Dog. Why does he insert himself so forcefully into the narrative? I entered the book expecting it to be focused on the voice and experiences of Dan, the elder of the subtitle, which is “On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder.” I wanted more of Dan and his friend Grover. Even Dan’s  old dog Fatback. I was not interested in the author’s confusion, frustration, and whining.

This is Nicole English coming to you from the Sociology Department at Fort Hays State

This is a discussion of the book, Neither Wolf nor Dog:  On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder, by Kent Nerburn. 

This is the High Plains Public Radio Reader’s Book Club and my name is Freddy Gipp.

I am born and raised in Lawrence, KS and currently head a small community development firm called Lead Horse LLC. I am an enrolled member of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, my Indian name is “T’san T’hoop A’hn, meaning “Lead Horse” in the Kiowa Language, and I graduated from the University of Kansas in 2016 with a degree in strategic communications from the William Allen White School of Journalism.

This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR Radio Reader’s Book Club  The book is “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman.

In 1979, three years after a failed previous escape and three years before Lia was born to the Lees, her family was part of a group of some 400 Hmong who escaped westward to Thailand, as their Vietnamese captors pursued them, setting fires and land mines. From there they emigrated to the US. Some 150,00 Hmong overall escaped the Vietnamese occupiers and the Pathet Lao.

This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR Radio Reader’s Book Club. The book is “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman

For me, the “nut” of Anne Fadiman’s story of Lia Lee, a child she met only after Lia was in a persistent vegetative state, the “nut” is the community of which Lia is a part, though she is not conscious of any of them.

This spring the HPPR readers’ book club is reading Anne Fadiman’s “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”. I am Phillip Periman in Amarillo here to give you a little background on this narrative, non-fiction book which was published in 1997 and is the story of the cross-cultural conflict between modern American medicine and a family of refugee Hmong whose baby daughter Lia had a seizure disorder. The child had 17 admissions and over 100 clinic visits to the Merced medical community between the ages of three months and four year.

Hi, I’m Valerie a radio reader from Topeka and I’m in the middle of reading The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down: a Hmong Child, Her American Doctors and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman. This book is part of HPPRs Radio Readers Book Club this go round with the theme Cultures in a Common Land.

Most of this book is about the clash of cultures and outlook towards healing and spirituality. Interestingly, I could totally relate to the Hmong point of view, as opposed to the American doctors.

Thank you for joining us on the High Plains Public Radio Station. My name is Jessica Sadler, and I am a Science Teacher and STEAM facilitator in Olathe, Kansas. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss When the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. For all initial appearances this is based on the true case of Lia Lee, a young Hmong girl with epilepsy and the battle forged by her family with the westernized world of medicine. However, there is a strong opportunity for learning more about the Hmong people and their centuries of history up to present day.

This is Phillip Periman in Amarillo speaking about the HPPR Reader’s Book Club This spring we are reading Anne Fadiman’s non-fiction, narrative story of the cross-cultural conflict between western medicine and a Hmong family(the Lees) whose 3 month old daughter, Lia, has a seizure disorder which in their language is called  kow da pays which means The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Fadiman uses this as the title of her book.

Hi, I’m Marcy McKay from Amarillo, author of Amazon’s #1 Hot New Release, When Life Feels Like a House Fire: Transforming Your Stress. I’m excited to be a Radio Reader for High Plains Public Radio’s Book Club.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman is thought-provoking and insightful. Even though it was written in 1997, it’s still standard reading for some nursing schools today. The book does a beautiful job of leaving you sympathetic to both the American doctors, as well as the Hmong refugees whom they’re trying to treat.

You are listening to the High Plains Public Radio Reader’s Book Club. My name is Freddy Gipp, I am an enrolled member of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, and my Indian name is T’san T’hoop Ah’n, meaning “Lead Horse”, in the Kiowa language, I graduated from the University of Kansas and head a small community development firm based in Lawrence, KS.

In her book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman tells the story of Lia Lee, a young Hmong girl whose epilepsy was diagnosed in Merced, California.

This is Phillip Periman in Amarillo giving listeners a taste of what we are reading in the HPPR readers’ book club this spring. Anne Fadiman’s non-fiction narrative story of the cross-cultural conflict between a Hmong family whose baby girl has a seizure disorder and modern western medicine came out in 1997. Her title came from the Hmong name for the illness qaug dab peg(kow da pays) which translates: “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”.

This is Nicole English coming to you from the Sociology Department at Fort Hays State University for HPPR's Book-Bytes....

This is a discussion of the book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down:  A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman. 

This is Leslie VonHolten with another HPPR Radio Readers Book Byte.

A lifetime of reading books teaches you that words—English words, anyway—are expandable, malleable vessels of seemingly endless meaning. As I read Anne Fadiman’s incredible book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, I kept chewing on one word in particular: Culture. Such a small word, culture. Interesting how in the United States, we load that small word up with so much  complexity and contradictory simplicity—with such respect and dismissal.

Hi, I am Phillip Periman from Amarillo, one of the discussants for the High Plains Radio Readers’ Book Club. One of the three books we are reading this Spring is “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” written by Anne Fadiman and published in 1997. This non-fiction book is about a Hmong refugee family, the Lees and their daughter Lia stricken with epilepsy, and the major family trauma and loss they suffer because of  cross cultural differences with the American medical system.

 Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas.  Our Spring Read, Cultures in a Common Land, invites us to think about conflicts between our ways of life and the customs, habits, and traditions of others.  We began our spring read with Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible, a novel that plunks a 1950’s family from the American South into the middle of the African Congo.  Not versed in the customs or the geography of the land, and slow to learn, each member of the Price family adapts or dies.

This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR’s Radio Reader’s Book Club. The book is “Poisonwood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver.

The jobs of spies are justified by the stories they tell, even when the stories lie. They work best when your “customer” wants to hear them.” The oldest two-punch sales routine goes:
     1 – You have a problem.
     2 – We have the solution.