Grandma’s Tipi: A Present-Day Lakota Story

A loving intergenerational relationship forms the basis of this portrait of two Indigenous cousins engaging with Lakota customs and elders. Now that she’s a rising third grader, Clara gets to spend solo time with her grandmother and cousin Juniper on the Standing Rock Reservation where they live. After their uncle Louie brings the family tipi over, their grandmother, who is its keeper, lights a braid of sweetgrass before the cousins help to erect the structure and spend time in it—eating, sleeping, withstanding a storm, and joining in community. While bonding with family, they learn that “the circle of our tipi has a story to tell... it is about remembering how to live in the great Circle of Life”; they also learn how to bead, paint spirit pictures, and dry meat, components of heritage that Clara retains when summer ends. Standing Rock Sioux creator Nelson couples luminous acrylic art—inspired by 19th-century ledger drawings, per a note—and text vignettes in this personal-feeling work. An author’s note concludes. Ages 4–8. (May)