Boozhoo! Hello!
Written and illustrated by Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley (member
of Wasauksing First Nation)
Translated by Mary Ann Corbiere (Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory)
Published in 2024
Publisher: Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press
Reviewer: Debbie Reese
Review Status: Highly Recommended
****
As you see, we are giving this book a 'highly recommended' review. But...
Some books are delightful!
I could also say 'delightfully recommended' because it is precisely the sort of book I would have used back when I was teaching kindergarten and first grade, and that I would have read to our daughter when she was little. Most elementary school teachers know this style of book. Questions are posed and answers given in the text but we can answer as we please, in the moment!
Cast your eyes up to the cover, above, and look at that wolf's smile as it looks over its shoulder. See the joy in its face? That's where the delight is. The style of Pawis-Steckley's art is called Woodland. In an author's note he tells us he began drawing this book for his newborn daughter. As she grew, he shared the art he was creating. She would clap and smile. I read that author's note after I read the book. I had felt something special as I read it, and now that I have read the author's note, I get it. His illustrations are infused with his daughter's clap, and her smile.
The format for Boozhoo! Hello! is this: on the left side of the double-paged spread is a page filled with an illustration. Facing it is a page of text in large font. Those words, as you might guess by the book's title, are in Anishinaabemowin at the top half of the page and English at the bottom half, as shown below.
This marvelous book begins with a rising sun and moves through a day's journey. On that first page, it is morning in the woods. "What" I imagine myself saying enthusiastically to a group of children, "do you see?" The sun! Flowers! Trees! Someone would say 'there's an animal behind the trees.' It is the wolf! When we turn the page we see this:
One of my favorite pages is the one with a young otter on its back in the water, splashing, smiling, playing. A dear one in my own family loves otters. I think he's gonna like that page.
See why I'm so delighted?
As we near the end of the book, we see a page where three "little ones" (children) are asked what they hear. Turn the page and we see these words:
gookookoo debtaagzitdbaajmat dbikak?Shhh! Mbe nbaak!Nahaaw, gookookoo.Gga-waabmin.an owl hootinggoodnight?Shhh! It's time to sleepnow.Goodnight, owl.
Imagining myself again, reading that last page in a quiet voice and pointing out the moon, the stars, the owl's closed eyes...
