The Children's Book Podcast

Kevin Noble Maillard (@noblemaillard) and Juana Martinez-Neal (@juanamartinez) share FRY BREAD, their upcoming picture book. We talk about culture and tradition and family and history. We also talk a lot about Kevin’s Aunt Fannie. There is a story behind the entire nature of fry bread and the way Kevin’s text approaches that story is through affirmation statements of what fry bread is and what it means. The book’s narrator walks the readers from the concrete and tangible into the abstract and ineffable, and the journey is helped along with great care from Juana’s beautiful illustrations. The way this book’s characters are in relation to one another, at times following, or playing, or participating, or listening draws out an intimacy in their togetherness, and it’s in that intimacy that the reader is invited into this experience. Kevin reminds us all in this conversation that there are many different ways that people can be Native, and I think it’s fair to say that this author-illustrator pairing accomplishes