Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard7/8/2023 ![]() ![]() A particularly striking spread depicts a wall etched with the names of hundreds of Native American nations, explicitly countering perceptions about the extinction or invisibility of indigenous peoples. Smiling, round-faced children are shown playing together and learning from elders, and details include traditional Seminole textile designs, dollmaking, and pottery styles. ![]() Martinez-Neal’s ( Alma and How She Got Her Name, 2018) illustrations are meant to be relished, lingered over. Fry bread becomes a metaphor for resilience, born ironically, as Maillard explains, from the most basic of government-issued ingredients. The simplicity of the ingredients, readers learn, belies the quality of the cooking process, the proximity with people, the historical tradition, the geography-for “fry bread is everything.” Maillard and Martinez-Neal bring depth, detail, and whimsy to this Native American food story, with text and illustrations depicting the diversity of indigenous peoples, the role of continuity between generations, and the adaptation over time of people, place, and tradition. ![]() Fry Bread celebrates the thing itself and much, much more. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |