This book is about a girl's memories of her great-grandmother who was Abenaki. Jamie learned a lot about nature and Abenaki traditions from her grandmother. Her grandmother died and Jamie missed her. This story is easy for kids to relate to because they can share traditions and memories about their grandparents. The illustrations in this story are beautiful paintings of the nature described in the story. ( )

Summary:
This book is about a native american girl named jamie whose great grandma dies. her and her grandma were very close and they did a lot of things together. Before she died, her grandma gave her a special song to remind jamie of her. After grandma passed, jamie goes to the woods and sings the song.
Personal Reaction:
this book was pretty good, most people can relate to losing a loved one.
Classroom Extention:
1. Good book for if a child lost a family member.
2. shows kids that people die, but their memories live on. ( )

Grades 2-4, Jamie is grieving over the death of her great grandmother and also remembering all the thing she taught her, birch bark for baskets, sap for maple sugar, teachings of the "old indian ways." She told her when se sees a fox think of her, as she sings a song in the woods she sees fox and is reminded she is never along.

Carolyn Phelan (Booklist, Nov. 15, 1993 (Vol. 90, No. 6))
Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, 1993) A quiet, gentle story, warm with nicely chosen details of old and young sharing lore of the natural world; Morin (Orphan Boy, 1991) provides paintings with impressionistic backgrounds luminous with golden sunlight and more specific rendering of the people, the fox, and the special handmade things Grama left behind.

Betsy Hearne (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, October 1993 (Vol. 47, No. 2))

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, 1993) Rating - 2

Children's Literature Reviews at http://clcd.odyssi.com.cyber.usask.ca/cgi-bin/member/search/f?./temp/~AuMmev:2

This book grabbed me from the first line – I remember that hoping that if I lay still, and didn't open my eyes, I wouldn't have to leave a dream to face real life. In this case, Jamie doesn't want to leave her dream of spending time with her beloved grandmother who has recently died. She remembers times she spent with Grama Bowman in different seasons, picking berries in the summer, cutting birch bar in the spring, tasting maple sap in the winter, and singing songs in the autumn. At the end of the story, Jamie revisits a favourite spot, and sings the song her grandmother taught her. In a moment of wonder, the elusive fox comes to listen to her song, and Jamie realises that her Grama will always be with her. I found this final scene breathtaking – I was delighted that Jamie's memories of her Grama would always ring her joy.
This book gently shows the feelings a child may experience at the death of a loved one, I would gladly give it to such a child. It weaves these feelings into the pattern of changing seasons, cycles of nature, and the passing of knowledge from one generation to another. The pictures not only capture the faces of the characters, but the different qualities of light in each different season, marking the circle of time. ( )