For a Girl Becoming

by Joy Harjo, Adriana M. Garcia (Illustrator)

Overview

From United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo and Pura Belpré Award–winning illustrator Adriana Garcia: a luminous benediction for a girl’s journey through life, and a celebration of our connections to the world around us.

A baby girl is welcomed to the breathing world by generations of her family and set on the magnificent journey of becoming. As she grows, she is reminded of her connections to the natural world; to her family, her ancestors, her neighbors; to the source of all magic and sorrow—and of her responsibility to uphold and honor those connections.

With US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s transcendent verse and Pura Belpré Award winner Adriana Garcia’s monumental illustrations, For a Girl Becoming acts as a blessing and a harbinger for a young girl’s life—and reminds those of us who still stand at the door of becoming that it is our relationships with nature and with each other that carry us through it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324052241
Publisher:	Norton Young Readers
Publication date:	04/29/2025
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	9.40(w) x 12.30(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Joy Harjo is a member of the Mvskoke Nation. She is the author of several poetry collections, memoirs, children’s books, and music albums. She is the recipient of many awards for her creative work, including a National Humanities Medal. She lives in Oklahoma.

Adriana M. Garcia is the winner of and two-time Honor recipient of the Pura Belpré Award. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/17/2025

“That day your spirit came to us rains came in from the Pacific to bless/ Clouds peered over the mountains in response to the singing of medicine plants.” In urgent, lyrical lines, U.S. poet laureate Harjo, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, follows an Indigenous family in gathering to welcome an infant. Thickly stroked, muralistic paintings by Garcia (Remembering) open with a figure in the sky smudging a desert house. Within it, a woman labors, while outside, horses—“hundreds of them”—run the land “to accompany you here, to bless.” A rainbow soon appears over the home, and family gathers bearing myriad gifts (“tobacco and cedar, new clothes, and joy for you”). As fluid, saturated images dotted with horses and rainbows follow the infant’s maturation, refrain-like lines urge the child to remember the source of life’s gifts (breathing, walking, running, laughing, crying, dreaming), then offer suggestions for how to move through the world. Visualizing Indigenous traditions and underlining values of family and interdependence, it’s a profoundly loving blessing of a book for anyone in a place of becoming. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2025-03-21
In this tale from a powerhouse creative team, a family welcomes a child with an empowering and fiercely affectionate blessing to guide her growth.

“The day your spirit came to us rains came in from the Pacific… // and all of us who loved you gathered, where / Pollen blew throughout that desert house to bless, / And horses were running the land, hundreds of them, / To accompany you here, to bless.” And so a newborn baby girl with “black hair, / Brown eyes,” and “skin the color of earth” joins a protective community that spans the heavens and earth. Page turns skillfully capture the passage of time, and as the child grows, she’s enjoined to move through the world with compassion and meet both joys and hardships with determination. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Harjo’s (Mvskoke Nation) fluid and impassioned second-person text circles back effectively to reiterate its enveloping missive, then appears in full at the book’s end. Pura Belpré Award winner Garcia’s dynamic and richly layered portraits deftly echo the poem’s movement. A palette of vibrant turquoise and leafy green depicts the child maturing and thriving, while immersive double-page spreads in tawny hues seamlessly incorporate Native elements throughout. A standout among affirming picture books, this beatitude-inducing work will quickly become the new go-to baby present.

A stunningly illustrated, tender, and tenacious message—a boon to any bookshelf.(Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews

Gr 6–8—This poem in free verse is addressed to a Native American girl about to go out into the world. The writing is lyrical with a natural rhythm and rich imagery. Harjo talks about the gifts the girl receives from her family at birth and her responsibilities as she grows to adulthood. The poem encourages her to share with others and be grateful for the world. It is an interesting and touching mix of modern and ancient ideas, mentioning junked cars and horses, mathematics and moccasins. Some of the text seems deeply personal, even intimate, yet many of the ideas expressed are universal. McDonald's stylized paintings are done in a warm and vibrant palette. Her compositions include symbolic images that swirl across the pages. Sometimes the text appears below the illustrations, sometimes on the opposite page, printed on solid-color backgrounds. The font is small and a little difficult to read when it is printed white on orange or white on olive green. Although in picture-book format, the text is intended to speak to early teens, especially those of Native American heritage.—Donna Cardon, Provo City Library, UT

School Library Journal

Silver Medal, Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards, Multicultural Picture Book

Winner, Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award (Oklahoma Center for the Book)

“This is a blessing to bestow on all of the young women in our lives. With Joy Harjo’s words, ‘As you travel with us,’ the road opens, and the journey promises to be lined with help—and love.”—Debra Frasier, author and illustrator of On the Day You Were Born

From the Publisher