Bowwow Powwow by Brenda Child (Red Lake Ojibwe), is about imaginative Windy Girl, and her dream of an amazing powwow. Her dream melds stories from Uncle with her own powwow memories. Under the beat of the drum, Windy Girl dreams about traditional dancers “dancing their style” and grass dancers “treading the northern earth”. She also dreams about swirling colorful costumes and powwow fast food stands – selling things like blueberry sno-cones, fry bread, and popped maize. Her dog friend, Itchy Boy, wakes her from the dream so she can enjoy the real powwow right in front of her. A powwow that’s “always in motion, part old and part new, glittering and plain” – always wonderful!
Bowwow Powwow is a winner of the 2020 American Indian Youth Literature Award (AILA). Read some other recipients of this award! Some of the other award books are: We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga by Traci Sorell and Frané Lessac, Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard and Juana Martínez-Neal, and Birdsong by Julie Flett (which I reviewed here).
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.