Sally Jenkins tells the interesting, but ultimately sad, story of the Carlisle Indian School in The Real All Americans (2007).
Thoroughly researched and told well, the book tells of how a small school for young Indians played against — and often defeated — some of the nation’s best football teams when the game was young.
Founded by Captain Richard Pratt in Carlisle, PA, in 1879, the school was the nation’s first off-reservation boarding school for Indians. Jim Thorpe attended and competed for the school, and “Pop” Warner coached for it. the Carlisle Indians were one of the first teams in the nation to use the forward pass.
While interesting at times, the book does little to describe the damage that U.S. policies relating to sending Indian children away from their families to Indian boarding schools did to Native American culture and families.