Perhaps the greatest power of a picture book narrative can be the intimacy of experiencing the lives and limits of someone else (even fictional) with empathy and emotional connection. That is further expanded when those specific individuals and events resonate and reverberate with our own lives, regardless of how far removed from the specifics we might be.
ORCHARD BOOKS, 2025
BRAIDED ROOTS is written by Pasha Westbrook and illustrated by Madelyn Goodnight. There have been several recent picture books celebrating and exploring the care and history of hair, particularly for people of color. Several years ago, one of these, CROWN: AN ODE TO THE FRESH CUT, won so many awards that there was barely room for all the seals on the cover!
In many of these the focus is on hair, its care, and the ways in which what has culturally been seen as "other" hair can instead carry your identity and reasons for pride and celebration of personal history.
In the case of BRAIDED ROOTS, I can imagine a submission letter or pitch that mentioned any of the recent hair-topic picture books for tone of joyful pride and connection, but offering several key distinctions. First, the girl and her hair-braiding father are "mixed", harking back to their descendence from a Black enslaved woman with a White father and other ancestors along the way that blended in two Native identities. As noted in that earlier sentence, it is Dad who is doing the braiding and storytelling, similar to a few other picture books, but distinct in his reservation-born identity and his intentional and literal insistence that the braid itself carries strength, heritage, identity, and a promise. (You can do anything!) Illustration throughout draws on saturated colors of nature, and incorporates suggestions of braiding in the bank of the waters, ribbons of DNA, and more. Sprawling scenes and close-ups are equally balanced with a dream-forward focus and an immediacy and intimacy that call on readers to lean in and learn.
This highly specific tale with its braid story, both literal and metaphoric, allows us to walk along, to sit and listen, to braid the history of these characters into our own lives. After reading, with a step back and a moment of reflection, I felt invited to recall and relive those moments when our own family (Dad, Mom, Grandparent, etc.) in which a regular practice helped us learn more about ourselves.
I'll bet that the same will be true for you when reading and also for those with whom you share this very special story.
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