For the first week of December, Red Planet Books & Comics is highlighting Children’s Books, with a 20% discount both on the website as well as in the shop at 1002 Park Ave. SW, 87102 in Downtown Albuquerque. Just use the promo code KIDZ20.
We’re showcasing two books among our inventory of kid’s books written by and for Natives:
We Are Water Protectors, (2020, Roaring Brook Press). Written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade.
Sofia St. John of The Riveting Review, writes:
It is a book full of vibrant, eye-catching images and powerful prose to match. Author, Carole Lindstrom, who is Anishinaabe/Metis and tribally enrolled with the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, writes the books from passion and experience.
We Are Water Protectors is narrated by a young, unnamed girl. At the beginning of the book, she is told “water is the first medicine” by Nokemis, who appears to be a grandmother, or an older maternal figure.
Right off the bat Lindstrom emphasizes the importance of water, while Goade highlights its beauty and power through the illustration. Lindstrom continues: “We come from water. It nourished us inside our mother’s body. As it nourishes us here on Mother Earth. Water is sacred.” These short sentences remind me of water washing on and off of the beach, ebbing and flowing through the book.
Jingle Dancer, (HarperCollins, 2000/Heartdrum, 2021).Written by Cynthia Leitich Smith', illustrations by Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu.
Publisher’s Weekly wrote of Jingle Dancer:
Smith, a mixed-blood member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, convincingly juxtaposes cherished Native American tradition and contemporary lifestyle in this smooth debut. Watching a videotape of Grandma Wolfe performing a jingle dance, Jenna is determined to dance at an upcoming powwow.
But she lacks the cone-shaped, tin jingles that are sewn on to dancers' dresses as part of the regalia. The girl walks down a suburban sidewalk lined with modern houses as she sets out to visit her great-aunt, a neighbor, a cousin and Grandma Wolfe, all of whom lend her jingles for her dress. Smith's language consciously evokes legend.
For example, "As Sun caught a glimpse of the Moon" indicates the time of day; and Jenna is careful to borrow only a limited number of jingles, "not wanting to take so many that [another's] dress would lose its voice."