RAVEN, RABBIT, DEER

On a snowy winter’s day, a young Ojibwe boy takes Grandpa’s hand and leads him out of the busy town and into the woods.

The boy shows Grandpa how to shake down clumps of snow from tree branches and kick snow in the creek where water bubbles through ice breaks. They trudge up a hill and make patterns with their footprints in the deep snow. Venturing deep into the forest, Grandpa points out different kinds of footprints. The boy tries to guess what made prints that look like “two hotdogs with two marshmallows in the middle.” The tracks are made by a rabbit, and Grandpa teaches his grandson the Ojibwemowin word for the animal: “Waabooz,” he says. Together they find a sparrow’s “teeny tiny tracks that look like twigs” and the larger prints of the raven, “Gaagaagi.” They count bigger animals hiding in the forest with tracks that “look like ‘I love you’ hearts cut in two”; “Deer,” says Grandpa. “Waawaashkeshi.” Faria (Chippewas of Rama First Nation) brings an #ownvoices perspective to Holler’s text, illustrating the gentle scenes in acrylics and colored pencil. Understated humor emerges in the details: The narrator holds up a mittened hand to show how many deer he sees, and Grandpa correctly agrees that there are “five”; later, Grandpa carries his tired grandson into the house “like a pile of firewood.” Phonetic pronunciations of the Ojibwemowin words appear on the endpapers.

This intergenerational tale gently introduces woodland animal tracks and Ojibwemowin words.