Following the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Indigenous Voices of the Americas program, Folklife Magazine continues to spotlight Native artists and experts.

“Picture books are for all ages. Storytelling is at the heart of being human.”
—Michaela Goade

In 2021, Michaela Goade became the first Indigenous artist to win the prestigious Caldecott Medal for children’s book illustration. We Are Water Protectors, written by Carole Lindstrom, highlights intergenerational efforts to safeguard waters, inspired by the Dakota Access Pipeline protests of 2016.

An enrolled member of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, Goade continues to live in her home region of Southeast Alaska, finding inspiration in stories that nurture a connection with land and culture. She seeks to inspire young Native artists and sees herself as part of a movement to improve authentic representation of Native characters and lifeways in picture books, children’s literature, and popular culture.  

This interview took place during the summer of 2024, following Goade’s Virtual Artist Residency at the Anchorage Museum. A Smithsonian Affiliate, the Anchorage Museum is planning an exhibition of Goade’s work for 2026.

Can you talk about the lack of representation of Indigenous stories and characters in media? How do you see that landscape changing, and what some of the barriers that still exist?

When Carole Lindstrom (the author of We Are Water Protectors) grew up, a formative book for her was Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She read the whole series and loved it. As she got older, she realized that she was exposed to some pretty horrific language in those books. As a kid, when the books you’re reading or the media you’re consuming is reinforcing a negative image of Indigeneity, it is very harmful. She got into children’s literature to tell the stories she needed when she was a child.

When I was a kid in the ’90s, there were plenty of books that were written and illustrated by white authors appropriating Native stories, like The First Strawberries: A Cherokee Story or Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest. When you look at these books and similar titles—even just their covers—you can tell they are looking backwards. They’re not about Native people today; they’re romanticizing the past. Native cultures are living, thriving, evolving, and these books do not reflect that.

Today in the picture-book world, we’re seeing more Native representation and more tribal specificity in storytelling. Even though I’ve only been working in this industry for six or so years, these days I feel more confident passing on a project knowing that it’s going to go to a different Native illustrator who will be better equipped to bring that story to life. I’ve been seeing more and more talented Native artists land their first contracts for picture-book illustration work, and that’s great!

With books like We Are Water Protectors winning the Caldecott Medal, it tells publishers that you can have more than one Native book on your list for the year because people want these stories. These books can do well. They can sell. And although representation is improving, it’s still not where it needs to be.

Dr. Rudine Bishop Sims articulated a concept that books are either a mirror that reflects a child’s identity and makes them feel seen and valued, a window that gives them a peek into another world, or a sliding glass door, which invites a child to step across the threshold and get a sense of what life is like for other people. Books that are sliding glass doors build cross-cultural understanding, empathy, and compassion—and these are all things I think we can agree that we need more of in this world. 

And people might say, why does this matter? These are just kids’ books. But ultimately, these books are reflections of our society. What we’re choosing to read to our children is by default telling them who and what is important in the world today. Finding the right book at the right time can have a powerful impact on a child, and I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to say, in some instances, it can really save the life of a young person who’s struggling. Finding a book that resonates, that makes a person feel valued and important—that matters.

Picture books are for all ages. When I’m writing or illustrating, I keep children at the heart of it, but I always try to remember that they can be helpful for all readers. They can invite conversation and opportunities to connect. Personally, I find them healing to work on. It’s healing for that inner kid who didn’t have these kinds of books around. I spent so much time being ashamed and embarrassed and confused about being Native. So today, I try to create books that help Native children feel empowered, cherished, and seen.

How did you get into illustrating and writing picture books?

Growing up, I always considered myself an artist to some degree. Art was nurtured in my family and my community, so I was lucky. I studied visual art in school but specialized in graphic design. After working in that field for a while, I was really missing creative autonomy. I decided to freelance and move back to Juneau.

Not long after, Sealaska Heritage Institute, an extension of our regional Native Corporation in Southeast Alaska, put out a call for proposals for their Baby Raven Reads program, a self-published picture-book program aimed at promoting early literacy and language development for young learners of the tribe and region.

I lacked technical illustration skills, and I hadn’t worked in watercolor since I was a kid, but I drew confidence from the subject matter and the stories. It was a great help and comfort to work alongside a group with the knowledge, expertise, and resources when it came to ensuring cultural accuracy and sensitivity. The books we collaborated on were traditional stories adapted by Elders or contemporary stories by authors belonging to or connected to the tribe.

Although I struggled with the artistic and technical side of things, I never lacked creative inspiration. These stories were set in Southeast Alaska, where I grew up. Working on stories from home felt like a safe cocoon to nurture my picture-book illustration skills. Picture-book illustration is its own unique art form, and there was so much to learn: how does the turning of pages and the sequencing of images affect the story? How do I make sure the art tells a complementary but unique story apart from the text? And sometimes very simply, how do you make characters look the same from page to page?! I was able to experiment and learn about these things without feeling like a lot of eyes were on me.

Illustrating those early books got me thinking from the very beginning about cultural traditional values and how they apply today. Land is central to identity. Our connection to each other and to the land is at the heart of all the books I’ve worked on, even across different genres and subject areas, settings, cultural backgrounds.

Can you describe where you grew up in Southeast Alaska?

I’m lucky to have grown up where I did. I’m lucky to live where I do now in Sitka. Lingít Aaní—otherwise known as Southeast Alaska—is a coastal rainforest region of over a thousand islands tucked between the Pacific Ocean and Canada. It’s a place of big, misty mountains running right to the sea, glaciers, rivers, wild storms, dramatic coastlines, abundant plant and animal life. It doesn’t take long to find yourself secluded in nature and to feel like the only human in the world.

How are your stories informed by your early experiences there?

I have so many memories of exploring on the water, on the beaches, in the rainforest with family and friends. It was magic—and still is, every day. Being in a place where the land is accessible and such a part of daily life was very grounding, and it makes it easy for me to connect back to the time and headspace of being a kid. I try to put a lot of that into the books—that feeling of exhilaration and joy, of the adventure and connection of being in a particular place that you love.

It’s also important to remember that there can also be uncomfortable and scary experiences in childhood. For instance, I was taught to be respectful of the ocean as it’s very powerful and can be unforgiving. I remember feeling wary of the sea, and I still am today. So not only am I hoping to communicate wonder and excitement but also respect and responsibility.

My goal is to get readers young and old to think about the land that they call home, to consider, appreciate, and connect to the Native Nations that have called that place home since time immemorial, and how we all might connect and feel a sense of belonging, together. When we care about these lands, this planet, that’s when change happens. When we care, we protect.

What other themes and ideas carry your work forward?

It really all boils down to the idea of home and placemaking, even when I’m working on stories written by different authors set in different parts of the world. If I don’t understand the landscape that the author is speaking about, I feel very unmoored. What does it look like? What does a summer night smell like? What does a winter storm feel like?

When I was working on We Are Water Protectors, I was very aware that I had not been at Standing Rock and that I was outside that community. But I found my doorway into the story through a connection to water. We as Tlingit people are people of the tides. When I was working on the book, I happened to be living in a tiny cabin by the sea, where the water surrounded us on three sides, and we lived off a rain-catchment system. Water was ever-present. That’s how I found an emotional connection to the story.

My most recent book, Being Home written by Cherokee author Traci Sorell, is set in Oklahoma. Traci compiled a huge bank of her personal photos for me to review and find inspiration in, and I also created my own reference sheets detailing the appearance, habitat, seasons, etc. of plant and animal life and taped them around my studio. I can’t just draw random flowers or trees. And I think that comes from beginning my illustrating career at home here in Alaska.

I love that attention to plant and animal life. In Berry Song, there is such specificity, such detail—down to the types of mosses on the forest floor.

For me, so much can be unearthed through close observation, and I find that attention to your surroundings just begets more curiosity and learning. When I was working on Berry Song, the more I was working on the book, the more it enriched my experience of being out on the land and vice versa. It was a beautifully inspiring cycle.

For young readers, it’s important to bring the book experience or the classroom experience into the real world. If you can create a cyclical experience between reading and life, kids will really connect.

I’m interested in your collaboration process with authors. How do you start the process of visualizing somebody else’s world?

I like to think of it as one big puzzle. I always prefer to begin with a dialogue with the author, which is a practice that has historically been discouraged by publishing houses to protect the creative autonomy and vision of the illustrator. But as a Native illustrator being tasked with bringing a Native author’s story to life, and especially when that author belongs to a different Nation than me, I’m not going to go in without attention and care and sensitivity to where the author is coming from and what they are hoping to say. Historically, Native people’s stories were taken from them, or appropriated or misused without consent, so I think it’s important to have a more collaborative approach.

From there, the art process depends on the story. Sometimes I can root it in a setting of my choosing with the blessing of the author. Sometimes it calls for a specific setting or cultural context. Either way, I’m combing the author’s text for connections to my own experience, asking questions, researching, and creating reference material, all while brainstorming inspiration that will guide the visual narrative. It’s creative detective work, and so much happens before I even start painting.

Picture books are an alchemy between an author’s words and an illustrator’s art. You can communicate all the things that are unsaid, you can weave your own separate story between the author’s text, or you can completely alter or add new meaning to the text through intentional choice. I find it fascinating!

What gives you hope for youth storytelling?

The Native Kid Lit community is growing so fast. More publishers seem open to mentoring artists into picture-book illustration. We’re also seeing more tribal specificity, which is exciting. I think it's special that kids today are growing up with these kinds of books during their formative years. They’re the bookmakers of tomorrow. When I am lucky enough to get to work with predominantly Native classrooms and communities, I always try to communicate, “Your stories are important. The world wants to hear what you have to say. I can’t wait to see what you create.” 

Francesca Du Brock is the chief curator at the Anchorage Museum, a Smithsonian Affiliate. Her curatorial practice is informed by her background as an artist and educator and is grounded in social engagement, place-based storytelling, and environmental justice. She holds an MFA from the San Francisco Arts Institute and an EdM from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.