Let’s Go! = haw êkaw!

Prolific Cree-Metis author and illustrator Flett has brought readers an exuberant story about learning to ride a skateboard – and some other things too. Speaking in the first person, a young boy tells of enviously watching the goings-on at the neighbourhood skate park. His mother is aware of his longings.

One morning, my mom brings home a bag from Grandma’s house.

Her skateboard from when she was my age!

haw êkwa! Let’s go!

The narrator is eager to try out this legacy piece of sports equipment and undertakes some cautious trials on the sidewalk and in the schoolyard. When he is finally ready to try the ramps at the park, a few days of inclement weather interrupt his plans. Eventually the opportunity comes.

But when we arrive, it’s like a waterfall of skateboarders

crashing down. I’m not sure.

Maybe I’ll just watch.

The boy becomes aware that he is not the only one observing the skilled riders. A few other cautious would-be skaters are there too. After a while, they make an alliance of three who take their boards back to the sidewalk to test their abilities and copy each other’s moves. Not only are the youngsters becoming more comfortable on their boards, they are zoning in on a sense of both accomplishment and togetherness. The narrator’s mom obligingly drives them all to try other skate parks but she also lets her boy have some freedom on the streets. Comfortingly, the book ends up with the newly-confident skateboard rider gliding back to where his mother waits.

Cacussh. Casussh. Closer, closer,

home.

Flett has added a long note at the back about her own son’s learning to ride a skateboard and the sounds and feelings of that experience. She also elaborates on the use of the Cree language in the book. Her warm story is not just about the perseverance required to master a sport. It concerns the pleasure of bonding with like-minded friends and about a parent’s watching a child gain independence.

Pastel and pencil drawings have a sense of motion befitting the subject of the story. Arms wave, hair flies, and readers can feel the power of that foot propelling the skateboard along the ground. The strong outlines and subdued colours of the human figures and other objects shown on softer patterned backgrounds of this clearly urban tale reminded me of some of the work of Ezra Jack Keats.

Newly independent readers will enjoy this outing. Let’s Go! = haw êkaw! is especially suited to older boys and girls who will appreciate the tone of the book as being more mature than that in many stories in a picture book format.