Name: Caroline Lewicki's review of Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard
Item: Fry Bread
Rating: 5
Author: Caroline Lewicki

Kevin Noble Maillard

Winner of the 2020 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal A 2020 American Indian Youth Literature Picture Book Honor Winner “A wonderful and sweet book . . . Lovely stuff.” —The New York Times Book Review Told in lively and powerful verse by debut author Kevin Noble Maillard, Fry Bread is an evocative depiction of a modern Native American family, vibrantly illustrated by Pura Belpre Award winner and Caldecott Honoree Juana Martinez-Neal. Fry bread is food. It is warm and delicious, piled high on a plate. Fry bread is time. It brings families together for meals and new memories. Fry bread is nation. It is shared by many, from coast to coast and beyond. Fry bread is us. It is a celebration of old and new, traditional and modern, similarity and difference. A 2020 Charlotte Huck Recommended Book A Publishers Weekly Best Picture Book of 2019 A Kirkus Reviews Best Picture Book of 2019 A School Library Journal Best Picture Book of 2019 A Booklist 2019 Editor's Choice A Shelf Awareness Best Children's Book of 2019 A Goodreads Choice Award 2019 Semifinalist A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Book of 2019 A National Public Radio (NPR) Best Book of 2019 An NCTE Notable Poetry Book A 2020 NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People A 2020 ALA Notable Children's Book A 2020 ILA Notable Book for a Global Society 2020 Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Books of the Year List

A Native American Family Story

Fry Bread

Caroline Lewicki

renee badenoch

Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story
Fry Bread is a joyful, ecstatic journey through different Native cultures through their connection to fry bread. Fry bread is more than just a food, it’s a history, it’s a nation, it’s a culture. An author’s note at the end includes a family recipe for fry bread and an in-depth look at the historical and cultural context for eating fry bread.

This was an absolutely beautiful book about family and community that focuses around fry bread, a Native American food with origins in colonial-induced deprivations in the last 150 years. This book was so warm and cozy and inviting. Maillard presented fry bread as something that is both common across tribes as well as unique to each tribe. The inclusion of every federally and state-recognized tribe in the US, as well as some groups that haven't managed to be officially recognized, in the end papers as well as in the story itself was so beautiful and really emphasizes the breadth of diversity that still lives on among Native Americans today. They are not a monolith nor are they extinct and Fry Bread does an amazing job of celebrating both of those facts. Definitely don't miss the author's note at the end, which provides some personal context from Maillard about his relationship to fry bread as well as some historical and contemporary context for some of the images and ideas present in the book. This was such a well-crafted book that I simply cannot recommend it highly enough.

A beautiful, almost poetic book about the history and love for fry bread. I loved the diverse illustrations in this book and would absolutely use this for a storytime!

Caroline Lewicki &
Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard

Reviews

Join the club

Caroline Lewicki &Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard

Reviews

Join the club

Caroline Lewicki &
Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard