"Johnny's Pheasant"
By Cheryl Minnema,illustrated by Julie Flett. (University of Minnesota Press, $16.95, available Nov. 1.)
On their way home from the farmers market, Johnny and his grandmother see a pheasant lying in the grass. "Pull over, Grandma! Hurry!" Johnny says. The bird is still warm. He thinks it is sleeping, but Grandma thinks otherwise. "I'm sorry, Johnny," she tells him. "I think he may have been hit by a car, but I can sure use his feathers for my craftwork."
Cheryl Minnema, a member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, tells a hopeful story of respect for living creatures. The pastel and paper illustrations by Cree-Metis artist Julie Flett capture colors and textures of the prairie — the rough grass, the glow of the setting sun, the joy in Johnny's face when the bird begins to fly.
Cheryl Minnema will launch the book at 2 p.m. Nov. 2 at Red Balloon, 891 Grand Av., St. Paul.
"A Map Into the World"
By Kao Kalia Yang, illustrated by Seo Kim. (Carolrhoda Books, $17.99.)
In a busy world, little Paj Ntaub (pronounced Ba Ndao) pays attention. When she moves with her mother, father and grandmother into a little green house, she notices the beans and melons in the garden; the ginkgo trees with their fan-shaped leaves; the streetlights shining in the dark. And she notices the couple across the street, elderly Bob and Ruth, who like to sit outside on a bench and watch the world go by.
By the next spring, Paj Ntaub has two little brothers, and her mother is busier than ever. But Bob has lost his wife; Ruth has died. Paj Ntaub brings her bucket of chalk to his sidewalk, where she draws for him everything she has noticed in the past year. "I started my picture with a teardrop," she writes. "And then I made it splatter like sunshine."
She draws the ginkgo leaf, the garden, a worm, the snow and her house. Her drawing, she tells Bob, is "a map into the world. Just in case you need it." Which, being lost in his grief, he does.
