“Cacussh! Cacussh! Cacussh!”
This is the sound a little boy hears from his window. It is the sound of big kids riding their skateboards. They go very, very fast on the winding path as they pass.
Noticing her son’s fascination, a mom finds her own skateboard in grandmother’s house and gives it to him. After all, she was his age when she learned. “haw êkwa! Let’s go!”
This seamless picture book, created by Cree-Métis author and illustrator Julie Flett, follows the little boy, helmeted and determined, as he first sits on his skateboard shushing along, then goes faster at the park and at Auntie’s home. But going to the skatepark is another thing altogether: “…when we arrive, it’s like a waterfall of skateboarders crashing down.” “Maybe I’ll just watch?” he thinks.
Other kids join him watching the twists and turns. Then they skate off together, “haw êkwa! Let’s go!”
Flett’s thoughtful, spare text continues as they find places to skate in other neighborhoods, sometimes joined by new kids who get brave by watching them whoosh.
Let’s Go! haw êkwa! is a double treat. It captures the experience of dreaming of something new and doing it, finding a community along the way, and it weaves a few words of the Cree language into the text. In her note at the end of the book, Flett shares how she and her son talked about what skateboarding meant to him--summoning his confidence and finding others to join him. They also talk about and share with readers the idioms in the Cree language that convey the flow, the movement, of skateboarding.
This book is courage, commitment, and community in a nutshell. Riding a bicycle, joining a game at recess or eating lunch at school with a new group of kids can feel challenging. This wonderful book, from a Canadian publisher, says it all: give it a try. “Let’s Go! haw êkwa!”
Ages 4-8. Greystone Books, 2024.