A powerful new picture-book autobiography is the story of Sharice Davids, one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress and the first openly lesbian Native American to hold such an office.
Sharice’s Big Voice: A Native Kid Becomes a Congresswoman, by Sharice Davids with Nancy K. Mays and illustrated by Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley (Harper Collins), begins with a spread showing Davids’ victory on election night. It then takes us back to her childhood, where she liked to talk, “A lot,” loved Bruce Lee movies, and hated onions on her pizza. Yet she also discovered how to listen to people as the best way to learn about them. She learned about her own heritage, too, as a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, the “People of the Big Voice.” Her talking and listening skills came in handy as she moved many times with her single mother, who was in the Army. We see how her mother’s example of strength and service inspired her, and how she worked hard to pay for college and take martial arts lessons.
Davids fought in mixed martial arts tournaments and also decided to enroll in law school so that she could fight “to make our US laws more just and fair.” She didn’t know any attorneys, much less Native American ones, but had learned not to be afraid of challenges. She found a special program for Native Americans who wanted to be lawyers and got her degree, but discovered that working at a big law firm “didn’t feel like my path.” She decided instead to use her legal skills to help Native people. (My only quibble here is that the word “attorney,” used in addition to “lawyer,” is never explained, which might confuse some young readers who are less likely to know the former term.)
In doing this work, Davids noticed, however, that no one in the government looked like her or had grown up like her, she decided to run for Congress. That brings us back to Davids’ victory on election night and a reminder of the lessons she learned along the way: to take on challenges, work hard, listen, and “use your big voice to fight for your beliefs.”
Davids’ identity as a lesbian is mentioned in passing when she notes that growing up, she didn’t know she would be the first lesbian representative from Kansas, but the term is not explained. We also see a rainbow flag on one page, along with a woman’s symbol and a feather, to indicate her identity (in the context of showing those who thought that a queer Native woman should not be elected).
Ojibwe Woodland artist Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley’s deeply saturated illustrations “[honor] the relationship both Sharice and I have to our past, present, and future as Indigenous people,” he says in an Artist’s Note. Back matter also includes an author’s note and a section “About the Ho-Chunk” by Jon Greendeer, former president of the Ho-Chunk Nation. The level of vocabulary places the book at the older end of the picture book age range.
This is a story written to inspire, and likely will, serving as a mirror for those who share one or more of Davids’ identities and for anyone whose path takes them places they didn’t expect.