{"id":4903,"date":"2019-06-30T00:01:31","date_gmt":"2019-06-30T06:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4903"},"modified":"2019-07-02T15:57:53","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T21:57:53","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-644-featuring-julie-flett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4903","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #644: Featuring Julie Flett"},"content":{"rendered":"


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“My mom and I bundle up together under the covers
in our new home in the country far from the sea.”<\/em><\/center>
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\nI’m sorry to do this to you, dear Imps, but I’m writing about a book today that won’t be on shelves till September. I try really<\/em> hard not to do this \u2014 to write about books that you can’t get your hands on for a while. But for various reasons I’m sharing it today. It’s Julie Flett’s<\/a><\/strong> Birdsong<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (Greystone Kids), and it’s a beauty. Since I have a chance to share some art with you today, I thought I’d go ahead. <\/p>\n

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This is the story \u2014 divided into seasons that go from one spring to the next \u2014 of a girl named Katherena, who moves with her mother from her home in a city by the sea to the country. An elderly woman named Agnes is their only neighbor, and when summer arrives, Katherena visits her. Agnes has heard all about the girl from the girl’s mother. The two become friends, and Katherena visits often. They garden. They make things. They talk<\/em> about making things. The girl, who is Cree-M\u00e9tis and loves to draw, shows Agnes her drawings and tells her about the Cree seasons. Agnes shows her what she makes out of clay. Two artists, young and old, sharing their craft. <\/p>\n

As the seasons pass, Agnes becomes weaker, and her adult daughter comes to stay with her. Agnes sends Katherena home with snowdrop bulbs to plant next year. “They look like tiny moons,” writes Flett. “They give me more ideas for pictures. My fingers itch in my mittens.” By the next spring, Agnes is even weaker. Katherena gathers all her drawings to take to Agnes for a final farewell. That understated, moving spread is pictured below. <\/p>\n

Flett fills this tender story with spare, precise language and vivid details: “Our new home hums with peeps and whistles and ribbits and chirps.” Katherena is an observant child who thoughtfully takes in the details of her world \u2014 from the “snowdrops” of her yard (flowers in spring) to the “tiny snowballs” of the snow in winter. The text seamlessly incorporates Cree-M\u00e9tis words, and the book opens with a brief glossary and pronunciation guide. Flett’s earth-toned illustrations capture the seasons with a spare, minimalist beauty, which you can see in the art here today.
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“Agnes digs in her garden. I help by gathering extra leaves that’ll get mixed into the soil. The worms love this. It’s getting cold and windy and creaky. Agnes says she’s getting creaky too. ‘Would you like to see what I’m working on, Katherena?’ she asks.
‘I’d like that,’ I say.”<\/em><\/center>
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“Agnes has grown weaker over the winter. Still, from her bed, we can hear the spring birds singing their songs. And the tickle of the branches against her window.
We listen to the sounds together. The snow drops are peeking out.
I wish Agnes could see them. I have an idea!”<\/em><\/center>
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“When we’re done, Agnes says it’s like a poem for her heart. Then I sit with Agnes and talk about making things: mucky things and things with string and song and paper and words. And then we sit quietly together, on Agnes’s bed, until it’s time to say goodbye.”<\/em><\/center>
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\nBIRDSONG. Text and illustrations copyright \u00a9 2019 by Julie Flett. Illustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher, Greystone Kids, Vancouver\/Berkeley.<\/em><\/p>\n

Note for any new readers: 7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.<\/p>\n

* * * Jules’s Kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font>
<\/center><\/p>\n

Sorry to be so brief this weekend, but I’m grading grading grading<\/em> all weekend for the grad course I’m teaching this summer. Fortunately, the grading involves learning about all the picture books my students are reading this summer. I loooove<\/em> seeing what it is that they are reading and enjoying. But it’s back to grading for me. <\/p>\n

What are YOUR<\/font><\/strong> kicks this week? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“My mom and I bundle up together under the coversin our new home in the country far from the sea.”   I’m sorry to do this to you, dear Imps, but I’m writing about a book today that won’t be on shelves till September. I try really hard not to do this \u2014 to write […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seven-good-things-before-monday","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}