Saturday, November 09, 2024

Highly Recommended: BIINDIGEN! AMIK SAYS WELCOME


Biindigen! Amik Says Welcome
by Nancy Cooper (Chippewas of Rama First Nation)
Illustrations by Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley (Wasauksing First Nation)
Published in 2023
Publisher: Owl Kids (Canada)
Reviewer: Jean Mendoza
Review Status: Highly Recommended

This is a short-and-sweet review of a cool picture book from the shelves of one of my favorite local places, the Urbana Free Library in Urbana, Ilinois. It's a pleasure to know they offer some of the most current books by and about Indigenous people. 

Here's what the publisher, Owl Kids, says about Biindigen!:

It’s a special day for Amik the beaver and her little sister, Nishiime. Their cousins are coming to visit! Amik is excited, but Nishiime feels nervous about meeting new people, and when the cousins finally arrive, Nishiime disappears.

Lively, immersive illustrations show Amik and her cousins as they search the woods for Nishiime. Each creature they encounter, introduced to readers using their Anishinaabe names, reveals how beavers help the forest community. A fish thanks them for digging canals in the mud that they swim through. A deer thanks the beavers for cutting down trees so they can reach the tastiest leaves. None of the creatures have seen Nishiime, but keen-eyed kids will have spotted her hiding in the background throughout the story....With the perfect blend of fact and fun, this salute to the industrious beaver is also an energetic celebration of Indigenous perspectives, languages, and diversity.

Reason #1 to recommend this book: the illustrations. AICL has reviewed several books illustrated by Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley, including Sharice's Big Voice. Readers will notice differences in how Pawis-Steckley approaches the subjects in each of the books. In Biindigen! the animals' bodies have some of the stylized lines and forms seen in Boozhoo! Hello!, but they have a somewhat different "feel."  They are plump, sleek, and lively-looking. And it's fun looking for Nishiime after she vanishes from her sister's sight.

My only concern is that the inking on some of the pages in the copy I have is so dark that details can be hard to see. In the sample pages on the Owl Kids web site,  the illustrations seem much brighter.

Reason #2: centering Indigenous knowledge. Author Nancy Cooper reveals in a non-didactic (yet accurate) way how beavers operate as a keystone species in the environments they occupy. This is an important understanding for children, as many people mistakenly view beavers as destructive -- cutting down trees, blocking streams, and so on. But the other animals that appear in the story express gratitude for the ways beaver activity benefits them.

Another fact implicit in Cooper's storytelling is that Native Nations interacted with each other for millennia, across distance and language differences, often using water routes on their journeys. The Beaver cousins do the same thing -- traveling far to get together, carrying or wearing items from their homelands and nations. That's something to point out when sharing the book with children.

Reason #3: promotion of Indigenous languages. The beavers know each other by their names in the languages of the places they come from, including Anishinaabemowin, Inuktitut, and Ayajuthum. Cooper's storytelling incorporates several Anishinaabe words (the meanings are apparent in context) and provides pronunciations and English definitions in the back matter. Seeing their language in good books is a big positive for Native children, and learning about Indigenous languages is important for non-Native kids, as well.

Reason #4: portraying shyness as okay. Amik and the cousins are eager to get together. Nishiime thinks she is, but is overtaken by shyness. She watches instead, as many young children do in new situations. She returns to Amik only when the cousins are about to depart, after she has determined that she will feel safe with them. Instead of scolding her or pointing out the joy she missed by not joining in, the older beavers are happy to see her and answer her questions before they head for home. 

Biindigen: Amik Says Welcome can be an asset in several areas of the primary curriculum. I hope teachers and librarians will follow the example of my favorite library and get a copy -- or more than one -- for the bookshelves.

 

Tuesday, November 05, 2024

Highly Recommended! CHOOCH HELPED by Andrea L. Rogers, illustrated by Rebecca Lee Kunz

Chooch Helped
by Andrea L. Rogers (citizen of the Cherokee Nation)
illustrated by Rebecca Lee Knuz (citizen of the Cherokee Nation)
Published in 2024
Publisher: Levine Querido
Reviewer: Debbie Reese
Review Status: Highly Recommended

****

Sometimes a story reaches right into your being and makes you laugh, smile, wince, and then it makes you feel loved. That is my experience reading Chooch Helped by Andrea L. Rogers. She's a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Illustrations are by Rebecca Lee Kunz, who is also a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. 

Look at the cover. Kunz's art captures precisely what we see as we begin reading Chooch Helped. The posture of the girl as she peers over her shoulder at the boy watering a plant, spilling water as he does it captures what we see in the first part of the book. His red cape and red boots... how many of us have memories of siblings or cousins who wore things like that?!  How many of us have a younger brother or sister who--even as they grew into toddlerhood--were called "the baby"? Chooch Helped invites us to revisit our own memories and, perhaps, tell our little ones about an auntie or uncle who annoyed us when we were kids. I adore what this story does for me, and can't wait to read it to kids! 

Setting that aside for now, this story does more than touch on memories. In a straightforward way, Rogers introduces us to some Cherokee words. Cherokee families may feel a special delight seeing their language in this book. The rest of us may tell our children words in our own languages as we read Chooch Helped. 

I urge you to get a copy and flip to the back matter. Take a look at those pages before reading the book with kids. You'll find a glossary that tells you how to say the Cherokee words in the story. And, you'll find the Author's Note and the Artist's Note. Rogers and Knuz give us tribally specific information that they've put on each page. To most readers, the page where Chooch helps tune up bicycles is just a page about a kid helping his dad fix bikes but in her note, Rogers gives us more depth. She tells us about the 
Cherokee Nation's Remember the Removal Bike Ride. Here's that portion:


In the Artist's Note, Kunz tells us about Cherokee patterns in baskets and as I studied the illustrations to find it, I spotted (and loved) the green footprints we learn about as we get to the end of the story. That reveal is clever and delightful and oh-so-perfect! I adore this book! 

Get a few copies for friends! If you're a teacher, get one for your classroom, and librarians, get copies for your library system.