Little Tree are inaccurate, and the novel's characters are stereotyped. Several scholars and critics agreed with this assessment, adding that Carter's treatment of Native Americans repeated the romanticized notion of the "Noble Savage". In 1985, the University of New Mexico Press bought rights to The Education of Little Tree from original publisher Delacorte Press and published it in paperback. By its second year, the new paperback edition began to sell briskly through word-of-mouth publicity, with sales eventually surpassing 600,000. Though Carter's background as Asa Carter was discussed in academic circles, it was not widely known by the book-buying public nearly ten years after the 1976 New York Times article about him. In 1991, after the book won the American Booksellers Book of the Year (ABBY) award, it ranked number one on The New York Times non-fiction paperback best-seller list for several weeks. On October 4, 1991, Dan T. Carter, a history professor who speculated that, based on their shared heritage, he may be a distant cousin of Asa Carter's (the supposition has since been stated elsewhere as fact), published the article "The Transformation of a Klansman" in The New York Times. This article shed light on Asa Carter's dual identity, and The Times shifted the book onto its fiction list. Scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. also wrote an article on Carter and Little Tree for The Times that appeared in November 1991. A film adaptation of Little Tree (1997), revived publicity about Asa Carter. Carter's widow, India Carter, refused most interview requests during these years. In 1991, she did confirm to Publishers Weekly that Forrest and Asa were the same person. Eleanor Friede, Little Trees original editor, defended Carter's background in 1997, telling the Times, "[H]e was not a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I honestly don't see the point of all this nasty gossip dragged out years ago." Following the 1991 publicity, the University of New Mexico Press changed the cover of Little Tree, removing the "True Story" subtitle and adding a fiction classification label. Little Tree has continued to find readers and a place on reading lists for young adults since 1991. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., argued that Little Tree can be appreciated for its message of tolerance and its other qualities, despite its creator's former life. Richard Friedenberg wrote and directed the 1997 film adaptation. He also has defended the book, but not the author: Mr.