Genre: Children's 3-5 years
Published: April 16, 2024
Pages: 32
Indigenous artist and storyteller Andrea Fritz tells the tale of a wood duck and a crow who turn a mistake into an opportunity for friendship and growth.
Qwiwilh the wood duck is preparing to nest in his favorite tree when Q'uleeq'e' the crow invites him to play in the tall branches. They jump higher and higher up the tree until they accidentally break the branches and come crashing down into the stream below. After a daring rescue, Qwiwilh sadly realizes his nesting spot is gone, and Q'uleeq'e' decides to make things right for her new friend.
In this original story set in Coast Salish Traditional Territory, author and artist Andrea Fritz uses Indigenous storytelling techniques and art to share the culture and language of the Hul’q’umi’num’-speaking Peoples. This is the second book in the Coast Salish Tales, following Otter Doesn't Know.
I received a copy of this book through Netgalley. This is my honest review.
This is a story about a crow who challenges a wood duck to a contest that ends up breaking the duck's nesting tree. The crow feels very bad about what happened, so he looks for her to make things right even though the tree was already rotting and was going to break sooner or later. But he knows that it happened when it did because of him.
The message of fixing the problems you create is a very important one, and one I think many American adults on a certain side of the political aisle need to remember. We've caused problems in a lot of places, and the least we can do, is try to make them right. We aren't anymore, but we should be. One can only hope that teaching children these lessons will help prevent this problem in the future.
The illustrations were bold and colorful. I also appreciated that this book used native words and included a glossary so one could theoretically pronounce them correctly. I probably still did it wrong, but I wasn't reading the book aloud to children so it's fine-adjacent.
Overall I give Crow Helps a Friend 4.2964 out of 5 stars. - Katie
Andrea Fritz is a Coast Salish artist and storyteller from the Lyackson First Nation of the Hul’q'umi’num'-speaking Peoples on the West Coast of Canada. She studied West Coast Native art with Victor Newman, a Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw master artist. Andrea strives to express her People’s history and all our futures using her art. She focuses on animals and places of the West Coast and our intricate relationships with them. Andrea works in the mediums of acrylic on canvas and wood, serigraph, vector art and murals. She has had numerous gallery shows and participates in community-based art pieces. Andrea lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
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