Age: Kindergarten-2nd grade
Culture: Cree tribe
Tough Issue: Forced residential schooling for Native Americans

Beautiful depiction of a hard topic to discuss: the forced education of Indian American children that harshly punished any exhibition of their past lives. When a little girl asks her grandpa how to say grandfather in Cree, he struggles to tell her that his words had been taken away from him when he was younger. An amazing illustration shows a group of boys lifting their voices up in the form of a raven as it is being caged by a white priest.

Spoiler

Sensing her grandpa's unhappiness, the little girl seeks out a Cree dictionary, unleashing her grandpa's happy childhood memories of his family.

Florence presents this complex topic through visually evocative imagery and familial comfort.