Read through the seasons - and emotions - in Birdsong by Julie Flett. A young Cree girl, Katherena, moves to a new home with her mother. She misses her “friends and cousins and aunties and uncles”. The new home is over the mountains and near a field “covered in snowdrops”. She feels lonely and does not feel like getting out her pencils and paper for drawing. “My hands are cold.” But soon, she meets their nearest neighbor, an older woman named Agnes – who loves gardening and making things out of clay. The two share their love of making, creating, and interacting with the natural world. Katherena begins to draw again – and gradually feels more and more comfortable in her new home as she moves through the seasons and many moons. A gentle story about belonging, self-discovery, and inter-generational friendship. For other books written and/or illustrated by Julie Flett, check out: Wild Berries =Pikaci-mīnisa, Johnny’s Pheasant, and The Girl and the Wolf.
Julie Flett is a Cree-Metis author and illustrator of children’s books. Take the Read Native 2021 reading challenge provided by the American Indian Library Association, and enjoy these and other books by Indigenous authors and illustrators.