Praise for Why We Dance

***STARRED REVIEW*** "A powerful story that will have hearts beating in time with the pounding drums and dancers’ bounce-steps."
Kirkus

A moving portrayal of how Jingle Dress dancers “dance for those who can’t.”
Horn Book

The subtlety of the text is beautifully complemented with watercolor illustrations that depict a close, strong, intergenerational community steeped in the importance of valuing tradition even while tradition evolves with time. Why We Dance should be part of all readers’ repertoires.
Booklist

The specifics and cultural context of the Jingle Dress are left to the author’s note, allowing the text to focus fully on the emotion of the day, from the girls’ excitement and nervousness to the entire community’s love of and devotion to a tradition that honors elders and ancestors while growing contemporarily.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

About the Author

Deidre Havrelock is a member of Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Alberta, Canada. She was raised in Edmonton, Alberta, and is the author of the picture book Buffalo Wild!, hailed as an “exuberant celebration,” and Indigenous Ingenuity: A Celebration of Traditional North American Knowledge, coauthored with Edward Kay. She lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis, with her family.
Aly McKnight is a self-taught watercolor artist and illustrator whose art features vibrant colors and Indigenous stories. Aly is an enrolled member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and grew up in a small farming community in northern Nevada, She is the second-youngest of eight children and is now based out of Utah, where she lives with her partner, Brockton, of Hawaiian/Samoan descent, and their daughter, Paoakalani.

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