Caldecott Medal Contender: We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga

by Sam Juliano

The term “Trail of Tears” defines the trek of heartbroken Native Americans to their new homes in the West.  It captures the essence of the removal experience, one wrought with hardship and death for the Cherokee people, who were victimized by the betrayal of the American government, which promised justice, democracy and and rightful land ownership.  The forced relocation was carried out by government authorities following the passage of the “Indian Removal Act” in 1830. The relocated peoples suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route to their new designated reserve, and many died before reaching their destinations.   Though the Cherokees were the most profoundly affected by this tragic decree, the Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Ponca, and Ho-Chunk-Winnebago nations were also adversely impacted.  Debut picture book author Traci Sorell explains in a definition afterward that the “Cherokee way of life focuses on a mother-centered culture, from governance to familial relations” and that the the in-transience damaged the family structure which generally was one where children saw maternal relatives as integral to their coming of age.  While it is a fact that older Cherokee boys often trained to become hunters and warriors, and resolved to protect their turf, long held traditions were shattered, leaving familial assimilation a daunting challenge.  Sorell suggests that “many of these ‘lifeways’ were disrupted and many people died because of the removal.”  No discussion of the Cherokee Nation could possibly fail to mention this dark chapter in American History, and Sorell’s heartfelt reference is a stark reminder of what underscores the indomitable spirit of America’s largest Native American population (over 360,000) and the struggles they face in living off natural resources, even with a number living dual lives as Cherokees and as citizens of the United States.  We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga is a celebration of life’s simple purity, wedding traditionalism with modernity, and via a seasonal presentation recalling the Caldecott Honor winning A Child’s Calendar, a poetical work by John Updike, with illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman.

At the outset illustrator Frane Lessac depicts a Cherokee family of five and a dog in a Spring setting as a visual transcription for Sorell’s definition of “Otsaliheliga” which is an expression of gratitude and and an opportunity to “celebrate our blessings” while acknowledging the struggles faced by Cherokee Nation on a daily basis and through the four seasons of the year.  “We Are Grateful” bears a perennial Thanksgiving message expanded to embrace the full run of the calendar.  The first double page canvas is an introduction to the autumn season which Sorell titles as “Uligohvsdi-Fall” atime where leaves fall and temperatures drop.  Lessac’s burn-dished tapestry is resplendent and a reminder to those who love the late September to late November time window why no other time of years is quite as sensory, a time Longfellow likened to Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,  And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!  Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,  Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand, Outstretched with benedictions o’er the land.  Lessac is a proven master of leaves, and her gouache on Arches paper illustrations, as always gives her scenes a striking three-dimensional look, bringing readers into a cornucopia of brown orange and yellow read during what is surely the most invigorating season of the year.   This is a time as Sorell again reminds her audience that we must always be grateful for what is essentially at time of great aesthetic and meditative uplift.  Lessac’s busy scene shows the family heading down a wooded path in gleeful leaf immersion temporarily curtailing one boy’s raking intentions.  The dark blue sky brings in the nighttime on the following spread, where “shell shakers dance all night around the fire” during the ‘Great New Moon Ceremony.’  The author doesn’t attempt to place the Cherokee in an idyllic light, admitting like any ethnic people they too have domestic quarrels, but will invariably band together to welcome in the Cherokee New Year which is held four days in October in conjunction with an age-old belief that the world was created during the autumn season.  Again Lessac paints a place of colorful occupation, where modern garb blends with traditional dress in a bustling banquet of common purpose.  The darker background emboldens the illustrator’s phantasmagorical tapestry with heightened contrast.  The finale of the autumnal triptych depicts a gathering of buckbrush and honeysuckle to weave baskets that are posed to “remember our ancestors who suffered hardship and loss on the (aforementioned) Trail of Tears.  A proud Cherokee grandmother (elisi) is featured holding the family’s newest member, an infant boy in a sublime wooded hamlet.

In a sparer portraiture of Winter (Gola) that bears some measure of resemblance to the classic Caldecott Medal winning White Snow, Bright Snow by Alvin Tresselt and Roger Duvoisin in its vivid color bursting of a snowy white base.  Lessac depicts a Winter scene known and loved by all people, one of sleigh-riding, building snowmen and hurling snowballs.  A woodpecker and two bears emphasize a kinship between the Cherokee and wildlife, and a family dog is also attuned to the fun.  Sorell also framed Winter as a time where elders sit tel story at the kitchen table while munching on “buttery bean bread” and “steamy hominy soup” which is also a time to feed the bird and other animals outdoors as the younger children can be seen doing through a window while the older ones show the youngsters how to construct corn-husk dolls and play cane-flutes.  Lessac’s warn orange-pink is a thematic expression of love and camaraderie.  Other family members are shown visiting the snowy grave of a departed Uncle with in the living room “men cuddle babies and sing traditional lullabies in Tsalagi, Cherokee.

The glorious yellow-green bonanza to denote the appearance of the Spring season may well be Lessac’s most spectacular canvas of all in We Are Grateful.   A boy jumps from rock to rock in a stream, , as a girl tinkers with a play sailboat, while the woman and baby relax on a picnic quilt and the father and daughter look up to bird perched ona  tree branch.  The Cherokee word for the season is ““Gogeyi” and Sorell again intones “Otsaliheliga” as a time when showers have refurbished streams and shoots spring up in a scene that surely would have warmed the heart of Miss Rumphuis, the planting mercenary in Barbara’s Cooney’s beloved picture book, but for Ms. Lessac it is a glorious display of pastoral beauty.  In adjoining vignettes men sing while calling on nature to protect crops as the mother and daughter gather wild onions which  which will make hen’s eggs a tasty dish.  A Cherokee matriarch helps children to sew moccasins and loop clay to build beautiful pots in a creative scene that may induce veteran picture book aficionados to recall the Caldecott Honor winning Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave by Laban Carrick Hill and Bryan Collier.  Sorell calls upon an ancestral story about planting ani (strawberries) as a “sweet-smelling” reminder not to argue, and Lessac incorporates some strategic reds to enhance the harmonic theme.  The author includes a farewell embrace of a Cherokee male heading off to serve in the U.S. Army, which underscores the clan’s unwavering support for the nation that usurped the land, but still attracted Cherokee loyalty.  The most modest of red-painted homes is the scene of the emotional departure, one repeated throughout America over decades and in all locations.

Summer (Gogi) is the time when the crops mature and the sun is scorching hot, but it is surely an especially apt time to offer “Otsaliheliga.” Baskets of berries and leafy greens are gathered, while Dad positions a scarecrow and children play hide go seek and float on the pond in a small wooden boat.  Other dog day vignettes include crawdad fishing for summer consumption and a harvest meal on the long outdoor table to persuasively echos one of the final illustrations in Lessac’s The Mayflower, her Pilgrim era collaboration with her husband Mark Greenwood, where she envisions the first Thanksgiving.    A stickball game poll is at the center of a brightly colored activity tapestry and the two final double page spreads depict tribal leaders speaking at the Cherokee National Holiday to the adolescents and adults of the Cherokee Nation, focusing in on their ancestors’ sacrifices to preserve their way of life on a platform standing next to a red stone building.  Lessac’s bold canvas bridges traditional with modernity in compelling terms.  The final exquisite spread seamlessly brings together all four seasons with illustrative bravado, showing in all-encompassing cognizance that the Cherokee Nation are grateful every day of every season of every year.

In 1721 the Italian Antonio Vivaldi gave musical expression to the four seasons with a timeless quartet of Baroque compositions; a few decades later painter Francois Boucher envisioned the seasons in the sensuous charm of the French rococo style.  Stand alone paintings by famed impressionist Claude Monet include his stunning winter landscape “The Magpie”, summer “Poppy Field,” lavish rendering of leaves in “Autumn Effect at Argenteuil” and “Le Printemps” (Springtime), and for picture book illustrators an evocation of weather has always been a passionate hankering.  Lessac’s trademark style, colorful dabs and and full bodied replications of hard-working people magnificently brings Sorell’s aching language to soulful fruition in We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga.  From the ardent tone of the dark purple end papers to the pumpkin patch title page to the enlightening back materials and the Romanized form of Cherokee words this is a book of exceeding and thorough craftsmanship.  For books about the Cherokees and Native Americans it is a revelation, for the Caldecott committee a real chance to honor spectacularly beautiful and soulful art from a gifted veteran whose very best work this is.  We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga is a picture book masterpiece.

Author Traci Sorell and Artist Frane Lessac

Note:  This is the sixth entry in the 2018 Caldecott Medal Contender series.  The annual venture does not purport to predict what the committee will choose, rather it attempts to gauge what the writer feels should be in the running.  In most instances the books that are featured in the series have been touted as contenders in various online round-ups, but for the ones that are not, the inclusions are a humble plea to the committee for consideration.  It is anticipated the series will include in the neighborhood of around 25 titles; the order which they are being presented in is arbitrary, as every book in this series is a contender.  Some of my top favorites of the lot will be done near the end.  The awards will be announced in late January, hence the reviews will continue until around the middle of that month.

My 19 year-old son Daniel with Sorell and Lessac last month at Manhattan’s Books of Wonder.