An Anishinaabe child and her grandmother explore the natural wonders of each season in this lyrical, bilingual story-poem.
In this lyrical story-poem, written in Anishinaabemowin and English, a child and grandmother explore their surroundings, taking pleasure in the familiar sights that each new season brings.
We accompany them through warm summer days full of wildflowers, bees and blueberries, then fall, when bears feast before hibernation and forest mushrooms are ripe for harvest. Winter mornings begin in darkness as deer, mice and other animals search for food, while spring brings green shoots poking through melting snow and the chirping of peepers.
Brittany Luby and Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley have created a book inspired by childhood memories of time spent with Knowledge Keepers, observing and living in relationship with the natural world in the place they call home — the northern reaches of Anishinaabewaking, around the Great Lakes.
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.4
Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.1
Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.5
Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.
Authors:
Brittany Luby, author of Dammed: The Politics of Loss and Survival in Anishinaabe Territory, is an award-winning historian and educator whose paternal ancestors originate from Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation. She is the English language author of two bilingual picture books that were illustrated by Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley.
MANGESHIG PAWIS-STECKLEY is an Anishinaabe illustrator and a member of Wasauksing First Nation. He illustrated the award-winning picture book Mii maanda ezhi-gkendmaanh / This Is How I Know and Mnoomin maan'gowing / The Gift of Mnoomin, both by Brittany Luby, and is the author and illustrator of Boozhoo! / Hello! He lives in the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples (Vancouver) with his wife Maria and daughter Mino.
ALVIN TED CORBIERE and ALAN CORBIERE, father and son, are Anishinaabe from M'Chigeeng First Nation. Alvin's first language is Anishinaabemowin, aka Ojibwe, and Alan is learning it as a second language. They collaborate to produce curricular materials in Anishinaabemowin for learners of all ages. Alan Corbiere is an assistant professor of Indigenous history at York University in Toronto.