Still This Love Goes On
by Buffy Sainte-Marie; illus. by Julie Flett
Primary    Greystone Kids    32 pp.    g
9/22    978-1-77164-807-3    $18.95
e-book ed.  978-1-77164-808-0    $18.95

Sainte-Marie’s (Cree First Nation) 2008 song about wintertime on the Cree reserve in Alberta has here been reinterpreted as a picture book. Flett’s (Cree-Métis) signature style—with its nature-evoking colors; simple, ­sweeping lines; and expansive compositions in gorgeous art rendered in pastel and pencil—suggests movement into limitless space and time (“still this love goes on and on”). The strength of both text and art lies in their concrete imagery and cultural specificity: snowshoes, parkas, sweetgrass, drums, jingle dancers, fancy dancers, “beaded girls and painted ponies.” Seeing the song lyrics in this format draws the ­reader’s attention to felicitous phrasing and reveals the power of metaphors such as “Now the fields are muffled in white and snow is on the dawn /Morning comes on shivering wings.” The book includes notated music—handy for teachers and librarians to use during storytime.

From the November/December 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.