Encourage children to show love and support for each other and to consider each other's well-being in their everyday actions.
Consultant, international speaker and award-winning author Monique Gray Smith wrote You Hold Me Up to prompt a dialogue among young people, their care providers and educators about reconciliation and the importance of the connections children make with others. With vibrant illustrations from celebrated artist Danielle Daniel, this is a foundational book about building relationships, fostering empathy and encouraging respect between peers, starting with our littlest citizens.
Monique Gray Smith is an award-winning, bestselling author and public speaker. Her books cover a broad spectrum of ages, topics and emotions. Woven into all of Monique's writing and her speaking engagements is the teaching that Love is Medicine. Her books include Speaking our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation, My Heart Fills With Happiness, You Hold Me Up, Lucy and Lola, Tilly: A Story of Hope and Resilience, Tilly and the Crazy Eights, When We Are Kind and I Hope. She has also created the young adult adaptation of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Monique is Cree and Scottish. She lives with her family on the Traditional Territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples.
Danielle Daniel is an award-winning author and illustrator of books for children and adults. She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and lives on Manitoulin Island with her family.
"People of all ages can find something of value within the pages of Monique Gray Smith and Danielle Daniel's book...Smith has Cree and Lakota ancestry, while Daniel is Métis. With this book, they become quiet and understated--yet powerful--voices in an age of reconciliation. You Hold Me Up is simple, yet beautiful, subtle but thought-provoking. It contains critical messages about love, unity, and support. Through carefully chosen words and strong, colourful are, the book presents an important reminder to readers to sustain and support one another. Highly Recommended."
-- "CM: Canadian Review of Materials""Smith's text is simple, but powerful, about the small and essential ways we all support each other...Daniel's illustrations have a playful approach, but are also nicely stylized and textured, with a collage effect and fine details, warm and familiar images of people together...Smith is writing about survival and resilience, about the strength and power that comes from the love we give each other."
-- "Pickle Me This""You Hold Me Up is a gentle but effective way to introduce the topic of Reconciliation to students of all ages."
-- "ETFO Voice: Magazine of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario"