To everyone I’ve named and referenced, and to those I’ve somehow forgotten or omitted, but who have shaped my life in some way: Tigwicid. Thank you.
A Note from Cynthia Leitich Smith, Author and Co-Curator of Heartdrum
Dear Reader,
Sometimes life hits us with sudden loss, with unexpected limits that force us to shift our days and dreams. Before we know it, we’re on a new journey. Though Maisie struggles with the aftermath of her ballet injury, she is quietly building strength through the support of her family, and through her connection to her ancestors and to our natural world.
As with many Native stories, author Christine Day illuminates Maisie’s full humanity, with all the emotions that come with it, through the lens of daily life. The sweet promise of waffles, the ocean mist rising from a whale, the magical shimmer of snowflakes, the forever love of a father lost and of a father found, the bittersweet void of an unanswered text to a friend. . . .
In the ebb and flow of time, in moments that are quiet and laughing and aching and awe-inspiring, we’re all like Maisie in that we experience pain, healing, and hope for the future.
Have you read many stories by and about Native people? No doubt The Sea in Winter will inspire you to read more. The novel is published by Heartdrum, a Native-focused imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books, which offers stories about young Native heroes by Native and First Nations authors and illustrators. I’m honored to include this book on our first list because of the honesty in its tenderness, and because Maisie’s story shows that we all are stronger, deeper, and more courageous heroes than we can sometimes imagine.
There’s more than one way to dance. No matter the challenge, each of you, like Maisie, contains boundless potential and an infinity of possibilities for brighter days to come.
Mvto,
Cynthia Leitich Smith
IN 2014, We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) began as a simple hashtag on Twitter. The social media campaign soon grew into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a team that spans the globe. WNDB is supported by a network of writers, illustrators, agents, editors, teachers, librarians, and book lovers, all united under the same goal—to create a world where every child can see themselves in the pages of a book. You can learn more about WNDB programs at www.diversebooks.org.
Excerpt from I Can Make This Promise
Turn the page for a peek at Christine Day’s debut novel,
I CAN MAKE THIS PROMISE!
1.
The Big Bang
July 4
Fireworks are banned in my neighborhood. There are too many trees, too many houses. So this year for the Fourth of July, my parents are taking me to the Tulalip reservation, about twenty miles north of the city. They sell all kinds of fireworks, and they have a huge field where you can set them off. This place is crowded and colorful and chaotic. It’s amazing.
My parents lead the way to the booths. There’s a food truck parked beside the big gravel lot, selling authentic Mexican tacos. The smell of cooked, seasoned meat fills the air, mixing with the peppery gunpowder from all the fireworks. I can practically feel it, in little flecks of grime all over my skin.
Mom asks, “Do you need these, Edie?” She opens her palm, revealing a little package of earplugs.
I shake my head. “I’m okay, thanks.”
The booths are set up in several rows. The nearest one is decorated with red, white, and blue streamers, and a huge banner that shouts “FIREWORKS” in bold letters. The booth across from it is lime green, with little alien heads and UFOs outlined all over it in black paint. Another is hot pink, with candy-colored rockets arranged in bouquets on its counter. The next is blue, with the Seattle Seahawks logo stenciled in stark white and silver, plus the number 12; the 1 is shaped like the Space Needle.
I like this graffiti. I like the bright colors, the bold lines. I wonder if they created drawings and stencils first, or if they just grabbed their cans of spray paint and improvised. I also wonder if they keep sketchbooks, or have favorite places to draw, like I do. I’m always curious about other artists and their habits, their unfinished drafts, their inspirations.
As we keep moving, I can’t help but drink it all in. I’ve never been to a reservation before. Each person I make eye contact with feels significant. It’s possible some of them are distant relatives. I could be walking past cousins or aunties right now, and I wouldn’t even know it.
A rock-and-roll version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” starts blaring out of nowhere, and I glance around myself, trying to find the speakers. But as the loud electric guitar mimics the sounds of “O say, can you see?” I instead notice a food vendor with signs that say they have traditional Native American fry bread.
I stop and stare. The line is huge. The menu is handwritten on a whiteboard. An ice-filled cooler contains sodas and bottled lemonades. There are two open counters—one where you pay, one where you wait for your order. I watch as a girl receives her food. The fry bread is a rumpled, golden-brown disk, served on a paper plate. It almost looks like an elephant ear.
As the guitar transitions to a choppy “What so proudly we hailed—” something knocks into the backs of my legs. I stumble and turn around. A dog peers up at me with watery, bloodshot eyes. He’s panting hard, and his fur is mangy, but he looks happy. Surprisingly calm. I thought all dogs hated fireworks, but he doesn’t seem to mind the noise, the chaos. He just looks a little lost.
I extend my hand to him. “Hi, puppy.”
He lifts his big nose. Sniffs my fingers. Pushes his snout against my palm. His tail wags ferociously as he inches closer.
“That’s a good boy,” I say. “You’re a good boy.”
I check his neck, but he isn’t wearing a collar.
I glance around. Cash registers chime, and shouts of laughter are eclipsed by a huge boom. Shoes crunch across the gravel. A group of men walk by in mismatched basketball jerseys. A teenager adjusts her sunglasses; her colorful, beaded bracelets slide down her brown forearm. A guy with two long, dark braids is wearing a Batman tank top. A toddler is mid-meltdown, hands clamped over her ears, face crumpled as she cries out.
“Poor thing,” I murmur. I stroke the dog’s head, distracted. “Where’s your owner?”
The rock-and-roll version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is no longer recognizable. The guitar riffs have dissolved into wails. It doesn’t sound like “O’er the ramparts we watched.” It doesn’t sound like anything. Just crashing notes and frantic energy.
I turn in the other direction, and an older woman catches my gaze and holds it. She’s seated on a stool at the edge of the crowd. Her T-shirt bears the message “Find Our Missing Girls.” Huh. I wonder what that’s about.
“Edie?” Mom’s voice cuts in through the blaring guitar and blasting fireworks. “What are you doing?” She places her hand on my shoulder and gently steers me away. “Honey, you can’t pet random dogs like that. It’s not safe. Look at how big he is. He might hurt you.”
Dad’s behind her. “Your mother’s right. I know he’s cute, but you need to be careful.”
“But he’s alone,” I say. “Shouldn’t we help him find his way home?”
“Someone will come along for him,” Mom says, and I can barely hear her as the guitar screeches. “Don’t worry.”
She tugs me away, but I look back. The dog sits in the middle of the walkway. His ears perk up, and his tongue lolls out of the corner of his mouth as he watches me leave.
About the Author, Editor, and Illustrator
Photo by Jessica Wood
CHRISTINE DAY (Upper Skagit) grew up in Seattle, nestled between the sea, the mountains, and the pages of her favorite books. Her debut novel, I Can Make This Promise, was an American Indian Youth Literature Award Honor Book and a Charlotte Huck Award Honor Book and was named a best book of the year from Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, NPR, and the Chicago Public Library. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Washington, where she created a thesis on Coast Salish weav
ing traditions. Christine lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband.
CYNTHIA LEITICH SMITH is the bestselling, acclaimed author of books for all ages, including Rain Is Not My Indian Name, Indian Shoes, Jingle Dancer, and Hearts Unbroken. She is the author-curator of Heartdrum, a Native-focused imprint at HarperCollins Children’s Books, and is on the core faculty of the MFA program in writing for children and young adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is an enrolled member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and lives in Austin, Texas.
MICHAELA GOADE is an award-winning illustrator and member of the Tlingit tribe. She is the illustrator of recent picture books We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, Encounter by Brittany Luby, and Shanyaak’utlaax: Salmon Boy, winner of the 2018 American Indian Youth Literature Best Picture Book Award. She grew up in the rainforest and on the beaches of Southeast Alaska and continues to make her home on traditional Tlingit land today.
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Copyright
THE SEA IN WINTER. Copyright © 2021 by Christine Day. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
COVER ART © 2021 BY MICHAELA GOADE
COVER DESIGN BY CATHERINE SAN JUAN
* * *
Digital Edition JANUARY 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-287206-7
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-287204-3 (trade bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-06-307822-2 (intl. edition)
* * *
2021222324PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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