This Land is a Lullaby

In this soothing, lyrical picture book, a Cree mother and her infant revel in the sights and sounds of a summer evening on the Plains. Highlighting a deep connection to the land and to ancestors, the gentle verse shares Indigenous knowledge: “This land is a lullaby your heart already knows./ You carry the song from a lifetime ago./ It flows in our blood and echoes in your soul. Listen, my baby, to the sweet song of your home.”

Tonya Simpson, a member of Pasqua First Nation, imbues her poetic text with melodic descriptions of the natural surroundings. The text is full of sensory details; fireflies light the night in glowing colours and flit “to the hum of a dragonfly summer”. Owls hoot, coyotes howl and speckled frogs sing in a “twilight serenade”. Another song is orchestrated by nature when thunder “drums across the flickering sky”, and raindrops “fall like notes”. As the “midnight melody” continues, ancestor spirits dance in the indigo sky and sing a sacred song to lull the baby to sleep.

Delreé Dumont’s (Onion Lake Cree Nation, Saskatchewan) stunning pointillism illustrations glow with colours and textured patterns that seem almost tactile. Intricately detailed, the pages look like beautiful beadwork. In one scene, a mighty blue heron gracefully glides with outstretched wings over a pond full of cattails and frogs perched on rocks.
An ideal read-aloud choice, This Land is a Lullaby is also available in a dual-language Plains Cree and English edition.