By Carole Lindstrom

Illustrated by Steph Littlebird
Published by Harry N. Abrams

ABOUT WE ARE WATER PROTECTORS
From the award-winning and bestselling author of We Are Water Protectors comes an empowering picture book about family history, self-expression, and reclaiming your identity
 


Our ancestors say our hair is our memories,

our source of strength and power,

a celebration of our lives.

Mom never had long hair—she was told it was too wild. Grandma couldn’t have long hair—hers was taken from her. But one young girl can’t wait to grow her hair long: for herself, for her family, for her connection to her culture and the Earth, and to honor the strength and resilience of those who came before her.

ABOUT CAROLE LINDSTROM
Carole Lindstrom is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of literature for young people, including the Caldecott Medal-winning WE ARE WATER PROTECTORS. She is Anishinaabe/Metis and an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe. She is honored to write books that allow her to shine a light on her beautiful people and their strength and resilience. Her tribal homelands are in Belcourt, North Dakota, but she was born and raised in Nebraska and currently makes her home in Maryland.

Carole has been a voracious reader and library geek ever since she was growing up in Nebraska. On weekends you could usually find her at the library lost in the book stacks or holed up in her bedroom with a good book. It wasn’t until she had her son, that she discovered her love of writing for children and began to work seriously on her writing.

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By Kevin Noble Maillard

Illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal
Published by Roaring Brook Press

ABOUT FRY BREAD
Winner of the 2020 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal
A 2020 American Indian Youth Literature Picture Book Honor Winner

“Through the story and the book’s beautiful pictures, Kevin Noble Maillard and Juana Martinez-Neal capture the complexity of native identity.”
- Graham Lee Brewer, NPR

“A wonderful and sweet book [that] takes a staple food of many tribes across the coun- try and uses it to think about family, history, memory and community. . . Lovely stuff.”
– The New York Times Book Review

“With buoyant, heartfelt illustrations that show the diversity in Native America, the book tells the story of a post-colonial food, a shared tradition across the North American continent . . . Through this topic that includes the diversity of so many Native peoples in a single story, Maillard (Mekusukey Seminole) promotes unity and familiarity among nations. Fry bread is much more than food, as this book amply demonstrates.”
– Kirkus Reviews, starred review

ABOUT KEVIN NOBLE MAILLARD
Kevin Noble Maillard is an author of children’s literature, a journalist and recipe developer for the New York Times, and a Professor of Law at Syracuse University. He has written for The Atlantic and has provided on-air commentary to ABC News and MSNBC. He is the debut author of Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story, a picture book illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal, which won the Sibert Medal and the American Indian Youth Literature Honor. An enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklaho- ma, he is based in Manhattan, NY.

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By Maria Tallchief and Rosemary Wells 

Illustrated by Gary Kelley
Published by Puffin Books

ABOUT TALL CHIEF
Growing up on the Osage Indian reservation, Maria Tallchief was a gifted pianist and dancer. According to Osage tradition, women are not permitted to dance, but Maria’s parents recognized her gifts and allowed her to break the rule. Then when Maria reached the age of twelve, her father told her it was time to choose between her two loves. Maria chose ballet. It was a decision that would change not only the course of her life, but the face of classical ballet in America. The fascinating story of Maria Tallchief’s rise to become America’s prima ballerina will captivate young readers.

ABOUT Maria (Marjorie) Tallchief
Maria (Marjorie) Tallchief, the daughter of a full-blooded Osage Indian father and a mother of Scotch-Irish descent, was the queen of American ballet in its glory years; and her life story reads like a fairy tale, but one in which the princess must pay a high price for her magical gifts. Tallchief devoted herself to ballet at an early age, achieving instant recognition when she went to New York in 1942 at age 17. Immediately accepted as a member of the Ballet Russe, she caught the fervent attention of the controversial and brilliant choreographer George Balanchine. He made Tallchief not only his prima ballerina – creating unforgettable roles for her that called for “pyrotechnical virtuosity and limitless stamina” – but also his wife. Tallchief, adeptly assisted by coauthor Larry Kaplan, who also cowrote Edward Villella’s autobiography, Prodigal Son (1991), is mod- est about her own stupendous talent but expresses undiminished awe for Balanchine’s genius. Her descriptions of working with Balanchine and Stravinsky are fascinating and exhilarating, but her accounts of the terrible strain of 14-hour days of practice and performance are sobering. At the height of her career, Tallchief suffered from “perpetual exhaustion” and a fractured personal life, but she has no regrets–only sterling memories and much to be proud of. Donna Seaman.

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By Melanie Florence 

Illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard
Published by Second Story Press

ABOUT STOLEN WORDS
The story of the beautiful relationship between a little girl and her grandfather. When she asks her grandfather how to say something in his language – Cree – he admits that his language was stolen from him when he was a boy. The little girl then sets out to help her grandfather find his language again. This sensitive and warmly illustrated picture book explores the intergenerational impact of the residential school system that separat- ed young Indigenous children from their families. The story recognizes the pain of those whose culture and language were taken from them, how that pain is passed down, and how healing can also be shared.

ABOUT MELANIE FLORANCE
Melanie Florence has been writing full-time since 2010 and has written a bunch of books, but she’s probably best known for her picture books, Missing Nimama and Sto- len Words, which won the 2016 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and the 2018 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award respectively.

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