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COMING HOME by Mavasta Honyouti Kirkus Star

COMING HOME

A Hopi Resistance Story

by Mavasta Honyouti ; illustrated by Mavasta Honyouti ; translated by Marilyn Parra

Pub Date: Nov. 5th, 2024
ISBN: 9781646144570
Publisher: Levine Querido

An Indigenous man passes on his culture of resilience.

Renowned Hopi carver Honyouti (Iswungwa) tells the true story of how his kwa’a (grandfather) Clyde survived the terror of residential boarding school. Despite his parents’ brave attempts to hide him from government agents, Clyde was taken to Keams Canyon, Arizona. He and the other Native children brought there were forced to cut their hair and assume “a good Christian name.” Yet every trauma the children endured was met with resistance. When they were punished for speaking Hopi, the kids “whispered to each other instead.” When Clyde and his friend were whipped for trying to run away from the school, they didn’t give up—they tried again to return to their families. Even the forced adoption of a new name became an act of rebellion. Though “Honyouti” became Clyde’s last name due to an agent’s misunderstanding of his real name, Honkuku, his family takes pride in the name’s meaning: “a pack of bears that are running together.” Honyouti’s rich wood carvings, painted with acrylics, beautifully illuminate this account of ancestral pride, Indigenous power, and intergenerational memory. The text is presented in both English and Hopilavayi and concludes with backmatter about Hopi history, Parra’s work translating the story, and Honyouti’s art. This powerful tale is a much-needed reminder that the stories of Indigenous peoples, despite being threaded with trauma, are marked by defiance and pride.

A stirring tribute to Hopi culture, language, and resistance.

(Picture-book biography. 6-10)