| Alice Yazzie's Year, written by Ramona Maher and illustrated by Navajo artist Shonto Begay, is a children's picture book that tells the story of a Navajo girl as she experiences her eleventh year. The book allows readers to view aspects of a Navajo girl's year as she recounts important events of each month. Beginning in January, Alice rescues of lamb from the cold, she moves on to enjoy a trip to Disneyland, attend a Halloween party, and gets sent to the school's principal after she sings a song about Columbus to her teacher. Each event is told in a lyrical narrative verse that captures a girl's life living in a hogan with her grandfather on the Navajo Reservation. Her life is filled with changing seasons and environment and she experiences the love of her grandfather and tragic loss of a school friend. Alice Yazzie never loses her love of living and readers will see her grow up as she approaches her twelfth birthday. Shonto Begay's impressionistic paintings capture the environment and changing seasons in Navajo Country. The author adds the Navajo word for each month and Carl N. Gorman provides a note about Navajo culture and explains more fully the meaning of the Navajo months. There is one point in the book that compares a buffalo's red eyes to those of a drunk bronc rider making this picture book more suited for students in grade 5 to 7. |
