Status
Available
Call number
Call number
JP GOA
Collection
Description
As a young Tlingit girl collects wild berries over the seasons, she sings with her Grandmother as she learns to speak to the land and listen when the land speaks back.
Genres
Publication
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (2022), 40 pages
Original publication date
2022
Original language
English
Language
User reviews
LibraryThing member AbigailAdams26
Tlingit illustrator Michaela Goade, who won the Caldecott Medal in 2021 for her work on Carole Lindstrom's We Are Water Protectors, makes her debut as an author as well in this gorgeous, deeply-felt picture-book, and the result is a triumph! The simple narrative follows a young girl and her
Having greatly enjoyed Goade's work in a number of other picture-books, including the Lindstrom title, and a few folkloric works published by Sealaska Heritage, I picked up Berry Song with great anticipation. I was not disappointed, finding it to be a lovely book, one which pairs a simple but emotionally resonant narrative with breathtakingly beautiful artwork. Some of the scenes were just so gorgeous, both in their overall composition and in the little details—the scene of the little girl entering the forest with her blue bucket, the one in which her hair is made of berries and her dress is the sea—that I need to pore over them. There is true magic in these pictures! The narrative was also lovely, emphasizing the girl and her grandmother's relationship to land and sea, and the ties and love and gratitude that bind them together. As a berry lover myself, I was interested in the great diversity of different kinds mentioned, and I appreciated the use of both English and Tlingit words for them, on the gorgeously decorative endpapers. As someone who has only encountered cloudberries in Scandinavia before (I discovered them while visiting Sweden some years ago), I was tickled to see them included, and fascinated by some others (bunchberry, chalkberry) that I had never heard of before. Now I want to try them all...
Truly, a wonderful book, one I highly recommend to all picture-book readers looking for gorgeous artwork, stories of our ties to the land, or featuring a Native American / Tlingit cultural background. I borrowed this from the library, but I think I would like to own a copy of my own!
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grandmother as they gather the many berries growing near their island home by the edge of the "wide wild sea." The beauty of the natural world around them, and the theme of gratitude for what the land provides are dominant themes, which is emphasized in Goade's lovely afterward, in which she speaks more of the spiritual aspect of her people's relationship with the world around them, and with the "medicine" of berry picking...Having greatly enjoyed Goade's work in a number of other picture-books, including the Lindstrom title, and a few folkloric works published by Sealaska Heritage, I picked up Berry Song with great anticipation. I was not disappointed, finding it to be a lovely book, one which pairs a simple but emotionally resonant narrative with breathtakingly beautiful artwork. Some of the scenes were just so gorgeous, both in their overall composition and in the little details—the scene of the little girl entering the forest with her blue bucket, the one in which her hair is made of berries and her dress is the sea—that I need to pore over them. There is true magic in these pictures! The narrative was also lovely, emphasizing the girl and her grandmother's relationship to land and sea, and the ties and love and gratitude that bind them together. As a berry lover myself, I was interested in the great diversity of different kinds mentioned, and I appreciated the use of both English and Tlingit words for them, on the gorgeously decorative endpapers. As someone who has only encountered cloudberries in Scandinavia before (I discovered them while visiting Sweden some years ago), I was tickled to see them included, and fascinated by some others (bunchberry, chalkberry) that I had never heard of before. Now I want to try them all...
Truly, a wonderful book, one I highly recommend to all picture-book readers looking for gorgeous artwork, stories of our ties to the land, or featuring a Native American / Tlingit cultural background. I borrowed this from the library, but I think I would like to own a copy of my own!
Show Less
ISBN
0316494178 / 9780316494175