A young girl and her Noko (Nokoomis, or grandmother) head to Smooth Rock Island one dark autumn night in this atmospheric picture-book from Ojibwe author Jan Bourdeau Waboose and Mohawk illustrator C.J. Taylor. Here they build a fire, and the girl is drawn into a dance with her grandmother, a dance that reaches back to their ancestors and that ties them to the natural world around them...

Pairing a richly descriptive text with beautiful, intensely colorful illustrations, Firedancers was a pleasure to read. Waboose's story involves the readers immediately in the child-narrator's experience, as she finds herself out and about in a dark world that feels both frightening and familiar. The connection to her loving grandmother is beautifully evoked, as is the symbolic significance of the dance. The artwork, which looks like it was done in oil paint, is very intense, with a deep, vivid color palette and stylized figures. This is my fourth picture-book from Waboose, but my first from Taylor - I will definitely have to seek out more of her books! Recommended to picture-book readers looking for stories about grandparents and grandchildren and/or about Native cultural traditions. ( )

The pictures in this book drew me in, I flicked through the entire book before reading any of the words. The scenes are large, vivid, and full of movement. The colours are intense and give a feeling of drama. When I read the text, this feeling was only heightened. A young girl is going with her grandmother to a river island to do a fire dance. She's been to the island many times, but this is the first time she's making the trip in the dark – this adds a feeling of weight and suspense to her experiences on the spooky trip. While she is not afraid, she has feelings of import and respect for this changed world she thought she'd known well.
At the start of the story, the grandmother is asking the girl to slow down, but by the end, the grandmother is leading the dance – and calling the girl to join in. When the two dance together, the girl is filled with joy – dancing with her grandmother the same dance her grandparents had danced together, and her many ancestors before that.
I liked the images of her grandfather's moccasins dancing with them, the idea that by joining her grandmother dancing, the girl is with her grandfather, and all the people who have danced before her, and that they all dance together. ( )