Cecil S. King

Cecil S. King is credited as the author of at least two books in the Navajo New World Readers series: Away to School: ’Ólta’góó and The Flag of My Country: Shikéyah Bidah Na'at'a'í. Both were issued through the United States Indian Service / Bureau of Indian Affairs and later preserved by Project Gutenberg.

In The Flag of My Country, King is identified as the "Leader, Special Navajo Program," and the books themselves explain that the series was created for Navajo adolescents who were new to English-language schooling. The volumes use very simple English, paired with Navajo text by translators including Marian Nez and Ramona M. Smith, and illustrations by Native artists and students.

Very little biographical information about King appears to be readily documented in the sources available here, so it is safest to focus on the work itself. What can be said with confidence is that his books were part of a mid-20th-century educational effort aimed at helping Navajo students learn to read English, and they remain of interest today as historical classroom texts as well as examples of bilingual children's publishing.