Congratulations to Michaela Goade! She’s just been awarded the Caldecott Honor Award for her picture book Berry Song, which she both wrote and illustrated. Published in 2022 by Little, Brown, the book is a luscious feast of storytelling centered around a grandmother and her granddaughter picking wild berries. It celebrates the bounty of nature, the cultural and spiritual connections between people and their environment, and the continuity of Tlingit teachings about that relationship.

Not surprisingly, given Goade’s skills as an illustrator, the pictures are gorgeous, as lush, dreamy, and detailed as the rainforests of Southeast Alaska, where she grew up and lives. In 2021 Goade received the Caldecott Medal for her work in the book We Are Water Protectors, written by Carol Lindstrom, thus becoming the first Alaska Native and indigenous artist to win the prestigious award.

The text, too, is lovely. Rhythmic, with rich words, deliberate pacing, and concise phrasing, it subtly conveys an overall pattern and themes that reflect the values of the Tlingit Nation, of which she is a member. Gratitude and interconnectedness permeate the book; a recognition that we humans are not just part of nature, but live in a deeply reciprocal relationship with our environment. As Goade states in a two-page Note from the Author, “Berries hold great symbolic and spiritual significance. They connect us to land, community, and culture. They remind us of home.”

Though the main text is in English, a few Tlingit words are smoothly tucked into the narrative, such as gunalchéesh (thank you). Tlingit names for berries appear in an illustration, in the author’s note alongside photos of berries and, more extensively in both Tlingit and English, in the endpapers, which are beautifully illustrated with a variety of berries.

Goade’s work melds artistry with deep roots to landscape and culture that are life-affirming and heartening. Berry Song is a gift to readers. Gunalshéesh! Thank you for your work, Michaela Goade, and congratulations!

Mary's Wild Winter Feast

An on-going challenge in Alaska is finding authentic, place-based, and culturally relevant books for children. Mary’s Wild Winter Feast by Hannah Lindoff, illustrated by Nobu Koch and Clarissa Rizul, fits that bill.

Snowy Owl Books/University of Alaska Press

In six short chapters the book introduces readers to the bond between a family and their Southeast Alaska homeland through the wild foods they gather and preserve. On a rainy winter day, when Mary questions why they live there, her father takes her to the pantry. Jars of food on the shelves — salmon, deer, seaweed, blueberries, and smoked salmon — inspire brief, one-chapter stories about how the food was harvested and preserved the previous summer. Told primarily by Mary’s father, the stories are saved from didacticism by their realistic details, genuine affection between father and daughter, and a conversational style that incorporates Mary’s comments and memories, as well as Dad’s.

The book is unusual in that it is illustrated by two artists, both from Juneau (as is Lindoff). Nobu Koch’s background in 3-D animation renders graphic-novel style illustrations that form the visual backbone for the story. Clarissa Rizul, a Tlingit artist currently living in Colorado, contributed beautiful formline collages, which Koch integrated into her artwork. Rizul’s images add a layer of depth that enrich the illustrations both culturally and artistically.

Though not explicitly stated in the story, readers presume the family is Alaska Native, based on the art and the introduction, which explains that the story reflects the author's family. Lindoff's husband is Tlingit and Haida and the author was adopted into a Tlingit clan.

Mary’s Wild Winter Feast is all about relationships — a people to their homeland, a family to their environment and traditions, a father and daughter to each other. It captures the joy of those relationships and the satisfaction of participating in the web of life through harvesting, preserving, sharing and eating wild foods. Best of all, it does that through authentic stories a child can relate to.