How Precious is Our Water
The 2021 winner of the American Library Association’s Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished picture book published in the United States in 2020 is a book of rare beauty crafted by two Native American women who are actively involved in an urgent call for environmental stewardship and justice. Carole Lindstrom is Anishinaabe/Metis and is tribally enrolled in the Turtle Mountain Band of the Ojibwe. Michaela Goade is of Tlingit descent and is tribally enrolled with the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska. We Are Water Protectors is their first collaboration and it is stunning.
Lindstrom’s spare text is lyrical and there is a synchronicity with Goade’s illustrations that is rare in picture books with separate writers and artists. We Are Water Protectors is a picture book intended for a young audience of preschool and primary-age children. The simple narration honors the courage and resiliency of Native Americans who are the original stewards of the water, land, and living creatures in what is now the United States of America.
The expository end matter is a must read for secondary students and adults.
Both the author and illustrator write extensively about the often-lost ecological battles the indigenous peoples of the continent have waged to protect Mother Earth in the past and the present. Additional expository material incorporates a suggestion for further reading and a glossary of Native American terminology utilized in the text. The final page highlights a pledge children and adults may take as Earth stewards and water protectors. This is a picture book that begs for shared reading between young children and their elders, along with thoughtful discourse about the transportation of crude oil and the danger of oil spills both on the land and in the pure waters of rivers and oceans.
This elegant picture book is a remarkable collection of both specific and universal reference points. The principal plot line is about the 2016 protest by members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), but the picture book also honors the heroic and resilient environmental actions of indigenous people across the continent historically and currently. While the theme is about the urgency of present-day stewardship of Mother Earth, it is also a reminder of the profound care of land, air, and water that spans millennia among indigenous people everywhere. The story presents a demarcation between today’s young environmental warriors and the lessons from elders that have been handed down to each new generation.
From the beginning of time, water has been so cherished and essential to life that it has been protected by native women. Men have been and remain protectors of the life-sustaining element of fire. Water is precious. It is the first medicine and the Earth’s most sacred resource. Both the verbal and visual messages represent grief and loss too often experienced by native peoples, yet also serve as a testament of incredible courage in the face of overwhelming odds. The central characters are bold indigenous people; the natural world of land, water, and God’s nonhuman creatures are also celebrated.
Lindstrom's paean to ecological stewardship is greatly championed and enhanced by the lush watercolor illustrations created by Michaela Goade. The double-page spreads accentuate the blues and greens of a beneficial, living planet. The lush illustrations celebrate healthy, flowing, undulating waterways. The dramatic dual symbolism of crude oil pipelines as a frighteningly large, dangerous, and venomous black snake is extraordinarily powerful. From time immemorial the first human inhabitants of the Earth have foretold that one day a poisonous black snake would destroy nature’s most precious resource: water. Water also comes in the form of tears streaming down the faces of the People. The black serpent will destroy all living things in its pathway. In spite of spurious victories by the great black snake, Goade portrays the unity of water protectors who join forces to halt the destructive encroachment of the black snake and restore the essential clean water of Mother Earth.
A caveat. Critics writing in such publications as Publishers Weekly, BookPage, and Kirkus Reviews have lavished praise in the form of starred reviews for We Are Water Protectors, particularly noting its heroic call for environmental action and its luxuriant and arresting artwork. However, this breath-taking picture book is perhaps the most politically-charged winner of the Caldecott Medal since David Diaz was similarly honored by the American Library Association for his illustrations in Eve Bunting’s Smoky Night (Harcourt, Brace, 1994), a story about race riots in Los Angeles. Although the majority of book critics praise the virtues of the picture book, some have faulted the book as a work of indoctrination. One Amazon customer and reviewer went so far as to write that the symbolic black serpent would teach young readers to hate all snakes. Such criticisms, while representing minority views, again point to the vital importance of oral reading of the book followed by shared conversations and explorations between young children and significant adults. Despite any litmus test for political correctness, We Are Water Protectors is a visual feast not to be missed.
Home Activities
Children may need explanations of the origins and current presence of crude oil pipelines in the USA and abroad. Why is their presence so divisive? Why are people so concerned about their presence, especially on the sacred lands belonging to Native Americans? Carole Lindstrom’s afterword in We Are Water Protectors is instructive. Older students may also want to engage in Internet searches about pipelines that crisscross America.
Advocates of environmental protection may want to also use the Internet to explore current and historical ecological disasters caused by oil spills. Pipelines are not the only source of such leaks. Oil tankers at sea have created ecological disasters in Alaska and Florida. What are the pros and cons of the use and transportation of fossil fuels?
The author and illustrator make significant use of the serpent and colors as literary symbols. Serpents represent fertility, and, because they shed their skins, they are often positively portrayed as symbols of rebirth and renewal. However, snakes may also represent evil. The presence of colors may also be symbolic in literature. Green and blue, used so often in Michaela Goade’s paintings, represent innocence and nature and calmness or peace, respectively, while black symbolizes evil, fear, and even death. The powerful combination of the symbols of both a giant serpent and the color black adds much drama to the imagery found in We Are Water Protectors.
Challenge students to use print and online resources to explore literary symbolism. For example, what are positive and negative symbols of a rainbow of colors from black and white to yellow, blue, green, red, and pink? Similarly, what living creatures, such as serpents, are widely utilized by authors and artists as literary symbols? How are doves, for example, used as literary symbols? Finally, encourage children to use any form of literary symbolism in a drawing and/or story that they create.
Lindstrom, Carole. We Are Water Protectors. Illus. by Michaela Goade. New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2020. Caldecott Medal.
