My Heart Fills with Happiness/ Ni Sâkaskineh Mîyawâten Niteh Ohcih
By Monique Gray Smith [Cree, Lakota, Scottish]
Illustrated by Julie Flett [Cree-Metis]
Translated by Mary Cardinal Collins. Bilingual Plains Cree/English
Orca Book Publishers, 2018. Paperback Picture book, 24 pages
“My heart fills with happiness when…” the picture book begins. Each double-page following finishes the sentence three times before beginning the sentence over. Flett’s accompanying image may appear deceptively simple to some, but you’ll notice the ladybugs and butterflies also spreading their wings in the sun; the frog also walking barefoot in the grass.
On the next to last page, you are asked “What fills OUR heart with happiness?”
Guess what is on the last page? A Narwhal!! How did they know?!
My Heart Fills with Happiness is a marvelous opportunity to lists those things that fills our heart with happiness. It is also a marvelous opportunity to see “I dance” accompanying a young girl in cultural dress; “I listen to stories” from an elder; and “I drum” with an indigenous drum.
You’ll be able to find a board book version that is not bilingual, but the bilingual paperback isn’t large and it is sturdy enough for laptime—and it is less expensive!
Little You/ Kîya-K’Apisîsisîyân by Richard Van Camp [Dogrib (Tlicho) Dene from Canada].
Illustrated by Julie Flett [Cree-Metis]
Translated by Mary Cardinal Collins. Bilingual Plains Cree/English
Orca Book Publishers, 2018. Paperback Picture book, 24 pages
Little You/ Kîya-K’Apisîsisîyân speaks of a kind of awe that new babies bring, “little wish/gentle thunder;” “you are mighty/you are small.” A gentle rhyme and an infant in the arms of a parent and/or out in nature.
- interior of non-bilingual board book of Little You by Richard Van Camp & Julie Flett
In my review of Van Camp and Flett’s other picture book for small children I Will Sing You Home, I wrote that there is this element that “speaks of an interconnectedness and of legacy; a history, present, a future,” in the text and images. Little You does the same timeless work. The family, the child, is grounded in a history, a present embrace, and a future…”little star with little wings;” “little ember with growing light.”
- interior image from Little You, illustrated by Julie Flett
I love the hole in the mother’s sock as she dances with the baby. I love the reoccurring images and motifs of her work (round red sun). Intimacy in contexts imbued with life, situated within family, animals and nature.
- interior image from Little You, illustrated by Julie Flett
The words are written like a promise, the images bursting with joy. Little You is precious.
You’ll be able to find a board book version that is not bilingual, but the bilingual paperback isn’t large and it is sturdy enough for laptime—and it is less expensive!
49th Shelf Interview with Flett
leslie d. 