Michaela Goade

Evocative illustrations and lyrical language follow a young Cherokee child as she cheerfully moves from an urban area to a home where there’s “room to run.” 

Based on the real journal kept by French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1534, Ethis book imagines a first meeting between a French sailor and a Stadaconan fisher. As they navigate their differences, the wise animals around them note their similarities, illuminating common ground. Encounter is a luminous telling from two Indigenous book creators that invites readers to reckon with the past, and to welcome, together, a future that is yet unchartered.

As she waits for the arrival of her new baby, a mother-to-be gathers gifts to create a sacred bundle. A white feather, cedar and sage, a stone from the river … Each addition to the bundle will offer the new baby strength and connection to tradition, family, and community. As they grow together, mother and baby will each have gifts to offer each other. Two Indigenous book creators bring beautiful words and luminous art together in a resonant celebration of the bond between mother and child.

Harjo thinks of “a poem as a pocket or an envelope that can hold dreams, thoughts or anything else …”  Her sophisticated poem calls on us to “Remember the sky that you were born under,/know each of the star’s stories.” It is presented in lushly illustrated picture book format to reflect the indigenous stories from which they derive, calling on all to remember.

A children’s story that teaches about respect for nature, animals and culture. After a Tlingit mother gives her son a dried piece of salmon with mold on the end, he flings it away in disgust, committing a taboo. This offends the Salmon People, who sweep him into the water and into their world, where the name him Shanyaak’utlaax or Salmon Boy. It comes from an ancient Tlingit story that was edited by Johnny Marks, Hans Chester, David Katzeek, and Nora and Richard Dauenhauer. Illustrated by Tlingit artist Michaela Goade.This book is part of the award-winning Baby Raven Reads, a Sealaska Heritage program for Alaska Native families with children up to age 5 that promotes language development and school readiness. Winner of the 2018 American Indian Youth Literature Best Picture Book Award.

The prophecy has come true: the black snake has come to terrorize the community. It hurts the source of life, water. This call to action is presented by in word and image by an author and illustrator, Ojibwe and Tlingit/Haida respectively, based on the Dakota Pipeline access protest in Standing Rock reservation. Lush, flowing illustrations and a narration by a young Native girl make a compelling case for protection, encouraging readers to sign a water protector pledge.