Being Home
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From Sibert Honor–winning author Traci Sorell and Caldecott Medal–winning artist Michaela Goade comes a heartwarming picture book about a Native American family and the joy of moving back to their ancestral land.
Today is a day of excitement—it’s time to move! As a young Cherokee girl says goodbye to the swing, the house, and the city she's called home her whole life, she readies herself for the upcoming road trip. While her mother drives, the girl draws the changing landscape outside her window. She looks forward to the end of the journey, where she'll eat the feast her family has prepared, play in the creek with her cousins, and settle into the new rhythm of home.
With warm, expressive artwork and spare, lyrical prose, the story of a young girl’s move toward rather than away from home unfolds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An Indigenous child narrator looks forward to adjusting "our tempo" in this expansive portrait of a family's move away from metropolitan surrounds and to "our ancestors' land/ and to our people." As the move progresses, enrolled Cherokee Nation citizen Sorell (At the Mountain's Base) uses spare, rhythmic language to capture the child's glad readiness: "See you later house./ Gotta go, swing.// Time to head home/ and change our tempo." Caldecott Medalist Goade, a member of the Tlingit and Haida tribes, begins by showing the family's cool-toned, hard-edged city surroundings, where "cars rush,/ crowds collect." As they travel, the child's pink-inked sketches permeate the passing landscape until they arrive at the Cherokee Nation Reservation, depicted in soft-edged organic forms shown in pinks and greens. There, "everyone's here to help" the two unpack, and there's "room to run, ride, or roll along" as well as loved ones "close enough to gather, eat,/ laugh, dance, and share." It's a joyful image of a family embracing change that examines "the rhythm of being home." Background characters are portrayed with various abilities, ages, body types, and skin tones. Ages 4–8. Author's agent: Emily Mitchell, Wernick & Pratt. Illustrator's agent: Kirsten Hall, Catbird Productions.
