Recommended: THE GRIZZLY MOTHER and THE SOCKEYE MOTHER written by Hetxw'ms Gyetxw (Brett D. Huson); illustrated by Natasha Donovan

Teachers! Get The Grizzly Mother for your classroom--and ask your librarian to get in on the library shelves, too! Written by Hetxw'ms Gyetxw (Brett D. Huson) and illustrated by Natasha Donovan, it will be released on September 1, 2019 from Highwater Press.

Gyetxw is of the Gitxsan Nation in British Columbia and Donovan is of the Métis Nation of British Columbia. The Grizzly Mother is nonfiction that begins with a section called "Awakening." As you might imagine, the contents of that section are about the grizzly mother and her cubs waking in the springtime. It concludes with "A Final Run" that takes place three years later at a salmon run.

The final page in The Grizzly Mother is about the Gitxsan Nation. I especially like the first sentence. It begins with information about where the Gitxsan Nation is located and also says:

... land that cradles the headwaters of Xsan or "the River of Mist," also known by its colonial name, the Skeena River.

What I mean, of course, is "also known by its colonial name." It provides teachers and parents with the opportunity to teach children that Indigenous peoples were on this land already when Europeans arrived and colonized it. We need that factual information in nonfiction and fiction set in what is currently called North America.

Gyetxw and Donovan worked together on The Sockeye Mother a few years ago. It got starred reviews and high praise from science teachers. See the gold seals on the cover? I anticipate similar praise will be forthcoming for The Grizzly Mother.

Both books include Gitxsan words throughout, and both show the relationship between human beings and animals without romanticizing that relationship or anthropomorphizing the animals.




Over at the Highwater Press web page for the The Sockeye Mother is a video of Gyetxw talking about the Gitxsan words in the book. He says them so that you can learn how to pronounce them when you read the book aloud. The video is also available on Youtube, which means I can insert it here!

I highly recommend The Sockeye Mother and The Grizzly Mother published by Highwater Press. They are pitched at children in grades 5-7 but I think they can be used with younger children. And of course, picture books should be used with people of any age.