Alia Jones Reviews nipêhon/I Wait, by Caitlin Dale Nicholson and Leona Morin-Neilson

Eds note: AICL is pleased to share this review of nipêhon/I Wait. The review is by Alia Jones. Her blog is Read It Real Good. 

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nipêhon/I Wait by Caitlin Dale Nicholson and Leona Morin-Neilson is a follow up to their 2008 book Niwechihaw/I Help. This time, instead of a little Cree boy following his grandmother to pick rosehips, we meet a little Cree girl out with her grandmother and mother to pick wild yarrow.

This story is simple and the words are few and powerful and sweet; Nôhkom (grandmother) does something, then her granddaughter follows suit and finally the girl’s mother follows along. Everyone is connected. The story begins with Nôhkom standing outside their motorhome, getting her tools and bags ready to head out for the day. The little girl and her mother wait. I love how the author breaks her storytelling format to add some humor; after they pray, Nôhkom picks yarrow and granddaughter picks yarrow...but mom? The illustrations show us that she takes a moment to softly blow a bunch of yarrow flowers and then they wait for her!

Caitlin Dale Nicholson’s acrylic illustrations are thoughtful and gorgeous. I love how they dominate the page, with the story’s text taking up only a small space at the bottom. Her illustrations bring the reader along with the family on a warm summer day, where the greens and yellows of the grasses are vibrant against the blue sky. I really like how we can see the canvas underneath the paint; I think it gives the illustrations a really nice raw charm.

Every block of text in the story, from the jacket flaps to the acknowledgements at the back of the book, are written first in romanized Cree (Y dialect), then in Cree syllabics and finally in English. Niwechihaw/I Help did not include Cree syllabics. The inclusion of syllabics in this book is wonderful; it’s great for Native and non-Native kids to see. It’s also an important addition for young (and old!) Cree language learners.

nipêhon/I Wait is a very pretty celebration of Cree womanhood, family and joy! The little girl learns traditional ways from her elders all while having fun on a beautiful summer day (there’s a cute puppy too!). There’s even a recipe in the back of the book for yarrow tea. While preparing to write this review, I did some research on yarrow and enjoyed some tea with my own mother. Here is some of what I learned about yarrow and I encourage you to learn about it too:

Yarrow (Wâpanewask) is a traditional medicine with many, many uses; it’s well known as women’s medicine and is good for cleaning the blood. The flowers can be dried then crushed into powder and used as trap bait for lynx or marten. It’s also used as a smudge to keep mosquitoes away. [1] The whole plant can be used from the  roots to the leaves; chewed roots help relieve muscle sprains or strains and the leaves, when placed on wounds, can stop bleeding. Yarrow tea treats headaches, fever, hemorrhoids, nausea, colds, influenza, and more. [2]


Thank you to author/illustrator Julie Flett for sharing with me a memory tied to sweetgrass and for the Cree and Métis resources she shared as well. I recommend watching this beautiful short film created by her cousin Shannon Letandre called Nganawendaanan Nde'ing (I keep them in my heart):

Like the family in nipêhon/I Wait, Shannon spends time with her family (her grandfather in particular) collecting traditional medicine (weekay). In the film, she reflects on how she keeps her culture, family and traditions with her though she no longer lives at home, on her family’s land.

I hope you’ll take time to enjoy the beautiful book nipêhon/I Wait, a cup of warm yarrow tea and the lovely short film Nganawendaanan Nde,'ing (I keep them in my heart).

[1] Sagow Pimachiwin Plants and Animals Used by Mikisew Cree First Nation for Food,
Medicine and Materials: Public Version (Winnipeg, MB: Centre for Indigenous
Environmental Resources), 58.

[2] Belcourt, Christi, Medicines to Help Us: Traditional Métis Plant Use (Saskatoon, SK:
Gabriel Dumont Institute, 2007), 65.

Nicholson and Morin-Neilson's NIWECHIHAW/I HELP

(Note: This review may not be published elsewhere without written permission of Beverly Slapin.)

Nicholson, Caitlin Dale, and Leona Morin-Neilson (Cree), Niwechihaw/I Help. Color paintings by Caitlin Dale Nicholson, Cree translation by Leona Morin-Neilson (Cree). Groundwood, 2008, preschool-up.

Traditional Indian elders generally teach by showing, and children learn by helping. As they go for a walk in the woods to gather rosehips, a young Cree child learns by watching and helping his Kokum. As the child follows his grandmother—walking, praying, picking, listening, eating—he is learning about his place in the world, his relationships to his family and to the land, culture and community. There is no lecturing or moralizing here, just quietness, appreciation of what is, and a good time. In Cree and English, the spare text is complemented by vibrantly colored acrylic-on-canvas paintings

—Beverly Slapin

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Note from Debbie: The book is available from Oyate.

Books by and about American Indians: 2008

The Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison publishes CCBC Choices each year. It includes statistical data about numbers of books written by authors of color.

The information I share below is from "Thoughts on Publishing in 2008" by Kathleen T. Horning, Merri V. Lindgren, Tessa Michaelson, and Megan Schliesman. It was originally published in CCBC Choices 2009. I encourage you to become a Friend of the CCBC, which includes a copy of Choices.

In 2008, CCBC received 40 books that featured American Indian themes, topics, or characters. Of those 40, nine were created by American Indian authors and/or illustrators.


Here's two paragraphs from the essay, in the section titled "Multicultural Writing (and Illustrating, Too!)":

Louise Erdrich continued her chronicle of nineteenth-century American Indian experience in The Porcupine Year, which picks up the story of the Ojibwe girl Omakayas, last seen in The Game of Silence (HarperCollins, 2005). Now forced to leave their home, Omakayas’s family is on the move in a story based in part on Erdrich’s own family history. Joseph Bruchac, the most prolific Native author for children and teens, was inspired by family history to research and write what became March Toward the Thunder, about an Abenaki boy serving in the Union army during the Civil War. Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki? Nicola Campbell’s picture book Shin-chi’s Canoe looks at Native boarding schools through the a story of a boy enduring his first year away from home.

Horning, Lindgren, Michaelson and Schliesman note that few new picture books that show contemporary children of color were published. They write:

In fact, the only 2008 picture book featuring a contemporary American Indian child that we documented here at the CCBC was Niwechihaw=I Help, a bilingual (Cree/English) book published by Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press. The Littlest Sled Dog (Orca) features a dog rather than a child or children but does offer a glimpse of a contemporary Inuit village. And The Drum Calls Softly (Red Deer Press) is a bilingual (Cree/English) picture book in the voice of a child who might be contemporary or from the past, although the stunning illustrations by Native artist Jim Poitras (Cree, Salteaux, and Métis) have a historical sensibility.

On October 24, 2008, I posted a table of data from CCBC specific to books by and about American Indians. It covered 2002 through 2007. I'm reposting that table here, adding 2008 statistics to the table.

Year---Number of bks---About Amer Ind---By Native writer
2002--------3,150--------------------64-----------------------6---------------
2003--------3,200--------------------95----------------------11--------------
2004--------2,800--------------------33-----------------------7--------------
2005--------2,800--------------------34-----------------------4--------------
2006--------3,000--------------------41----------------------14-------------
2007--------3,000--------------------44-----------------------6--------------
2008--------3,000---------------------40----------------------9--------------