You Hold Me Up / Gimanaadenim (English and Ojibwa Edition) - Hardcover

Gray Smith, Monique

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1459827198 ISBN 13: 9781459827196

Publisher: Orca Book Publishers, 2021

Synopsis

Encourage children to show love and support for each other and to consider each other’s well-being in their everyday actions.

Consultant, international speaker and award-winning author Monique Gray Smith wrote You Hold Me Up to prompt a dialogue among young people, their care providers and educators about reconciliation and the importance of the connections children make with others. With vibrant illustrations from celebrated artist Danielle Daniel, this is a foundational book about building relationships, fostering empathy and encouraging respect between peers, starting with our littlest citizens.

This bilingual book includes full text in both English and Anishinaabemowin.

About this title

About the Authors

Monique Gray Smith is an award-winning, bestselling author and public speaker. Her books cover a broad spectrum of ages, topics and emotions. Woven into all of Monique’s writing and her speaking engagements is the teaching that Love is Medicine. Her books include Speaking our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation, My Heart Fills With Happiness, You Hold Me Up, Lucy and Lola, Tilly: A Story of Hope and Resilience, Tilly and the Crazy Eights, When We Are Kind, I Hope, Dreaming Alongside and Kohkom's First Drum. She has also created the young adult adaptation of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Monique is Cree and Scottish. She lives with her family on the Traditional Territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən and WSÁNEĆ Peoples.

Danielle Daniel is an award-winning author and illustrator of books for children and adults. She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and lives on Manitoulin Island with her family.

Angela Mesic currently teaches the first year Anishinaabemowin course at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM) and provides online long-distance learning for Yale University. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in the field of psychology at UWM and is currently working on a master of community psychology at Alverno College. Angela has a strong interest in research focused on the psychology of learning and curriculum development. Through the Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education at UWM, she assists the director, Dr. Margaret Noodin, in making significant revisions to language curriculum, and handles curricular queries from various internal and external partners, including Indian Community School, several colleges and universities throughout the United States, and tribal communities.

Margaret Noodin received an MFA in creative writing and a PhD in linguistics from the University of Minnesota. She is currently a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she also serves as director of the Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education and a scholar in the Center for Water Policy. She is the author of Bawaajimo: A Dialect of Dreams in Anishinaabe Language and Literature and two bilingual collections of poetry, Weweni and Gijigijigikendan: What the Chickadee Knows. Her poems are also anthologized in New Poets of Native Nations, Poetry, the Michigan Quarterly Review, Water Stone Review and Yellow Medicine Review. Her research spans linguistic revitalization, Indigenous ontologies, traditional science and prevention of violence in Indigenous communities.

Reviews

PreS-Gr 2—Following the format of My Heart Fills with Happiness, the narrative takes on interactions between adults and children that demonstrate emotional development and support for both. Text in English and Anishinaabemowin are centered on one page with a color background in either yellow, pink, or blue. Stylized, brightly colored illustrations with pink cheeked people sharing moments or activities are on the other page. The peoples' faces are defined by shading, and the children have many different skin tones and appearances. "You hold me up when you play with me" shows a mother with her child standing on her feet as they dance in a room. About half the drawings show adults with children, and the other half are children spending time together. The last page is a multigenerational family having a picnic and ends with "We hold each other up." VERDICT An uplifting look at the impact of small moments throughout the day, and a strong candidate for purchase.—Tamara Saarinen, Pierce County Lib., WA

Edition details

• Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1459827198
• ISBN 13: 9781459827196
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Daniel Danielle
• Number of pages: 32