Description
I Sang You Down from the Stars is a love letter from an Indigenous mother to her new baby. Tasha Spillett-Sumner, Cree and Trinidadian, is an award-winning poet and author who is also working on her doctoral degree in Indigenous land–based education and makes her home in Treaty 1 territory, Manitoba. Michaela Goade is a Tlingit award-winning illustrator who grew up in the rain forests and on the beaches of Juneau, Alaska, and still makes her home on traditional Tlingit territory today. Drawing from Indigenous creation stories and traditional teachings and illustrated in dazzling watercolors, I Sang You Down from the Stars is a tribute to the bond between mother and child. Writing in simple, lyrical text, author Tasha Spillett-Sumner draws from her cultural heritage in order to celebrate Indigenous traditions and the universal nature of a mother’s love.The narrator gathers gifts for a medicine bundle in anticipation of her baby’s birth; a fluffy white eagle plume, bunches of cedar and sage, a quilted star blanket, and a small stone from the river. When the baby arrives, the mother shares the bundle with her child and reveals the importance of each item inside. But when her family comes to meet the new arrival, she realizes the baby arrived with gifts of its own and that the baby is also a sacred bundle: a baby bundle. F& P Text level gradient 0.
2022 American Indian Youth Literature Award Honor Book