Kindred Spirits: Shilombish Ittibachvffa
by Leslie Stall Widener; illus. by Johnson Yazzie
Primary    Charlesbridge    32 pp.
7/24    9781623543969    $17.99
e-book ed.  9781632893680    $9.99

This informative picture book on the theme of “paying it forward” highlights the decades-long relationship between the Irish people and Indigenous communities in the United States. It opens with an acrylic painting of a young girl in a yellow dress running through a field of potato plants turning from healthy and green to wilted and brown. Readers learn that this is the start of the potato famine that plagued Ireland for five years beginning in 1845, during which millions of people died and two million immigrated to the United States, Britain, and ­Canada. When the Choctaw Nation, “still healing from their own hardships,” heard of the Irish people’s plight, they donated money to help send aid to Ireland. They felt like kindred spirits, or shilombish ittibachvffa, having lost lands and thousands of lives during the Trail of Tears from 1831–1834. Then in 2020, when COVID-19 threatened the Hopi and Navajo nations, the Irish people in turn sent aid. Yazzie’s bold, vigorous illustrations reflect both the suffering and the strength of the afflicted communities. He also includes depictions of the Kindred Spirits statue the Irish government built to commemorate the support given by the Choctaw during the famine. Back matter provides greater detail about the Trail of Tears, the Great Famine, and the ongoing relationship between the Irish and the Choctaw.

From the ">September/October 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.