REFLECTIONS OF A BLACK COWBOY: Book One:...

REFLECTIONS OF A BLACK COWBOY: Book One: Cowboys; Book Two: The Buffalo Soldeirs by Robert Miller, illustrated by Richard Leonard (Silver Burdett Press: $7.95 each). Hollywood depictions of the American frontier have produced a popular image that might be subtitled “How the West Was White,” despite a growing body of evidence that a substantial number of frontiersmen were of black, Latino or racially mixed origins. Miller estimates that more than 8,000 or 25% of the cowboys of the post-Civil War era were African-Americans. The first two installments in this series aimed at juvenile readers consist of stories that are based on that fact, but considerably embroidered by “The Old Cowboy” who recounts them. Book One features the adventures of U.S. Marshal Willie Kennard of Yankee Hill, Colo., and sharpshooter Nat Love, a.k.a. “Deadwood Dick.” Book Two is devoted to the men of the 9th and 10th cavalries, including Emanuel Stance, the first black to win the Medal of Honor and Lt. Henry O. Flipper, the first African-American graduate of West Point. Valuable reading at a time when the lack of role models for black adolescents has become headline news.