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A review by caseythecanadianlesbrarian
My Heart Fills with Happiness by Monique Gray Smith
5.0
My Heart Fills with Happiness, while certainly appropriate and fun for any family, is specifically intended for Indigenous readers. Materials like this and Richard Van Camp’s Welcome Song for Baby are crucial for these families, especially as Aboriginal populations in Canada are disproportionately younger than settler populations (National Household Survey: Aboriginal Peoples in Canada). The dedication in particular makes the audience of the book clear, by dedicating the book to residential school survivors. Also, Indigenous cultural details pepper the book, such as the mention of bannock, drumming, and oral storytelling. This positive reinforcement of cultural values is so important because of the history of colonization and its continued legacy in Canada that devalues Indigenous cultures.
For the purposes of language learning, the book does well with repetition: the phrase “my heart fills with happiness when” repeats four times, with a variation at the end of “what fills YOUR heart with happiness?” that encourages answering and asking questions between the parent and child. The other text in the book is simple sentences, all in the present tense starting with “I.” Some pages of text have sentences as short as “I sing” or “I drum.” Others have slightly longer sentences, like “I hold the hand of someone I love.” Although “my heart fills with happiness when” is not repeated before every sentence that completes it, it feels natural to repeat the phrase even when it is not written on the page while you are reading the book aloud.
Much of the text encourages touch and being active. It also frequently references the senses (seeing, smelling, feeling). “I see the face of someone I love” is followed by an illustration of a baby touching their mother’s face, implicitly encouraging both of them to touch each other’s faces. The text and illustration referencing hand holding perform the same function. References to smelling bannok, singing, dancing, drumming, and other activities easily invoke the idea to show the baby what is meant, by singing, dancing, or drumming in front of them, or touching your nose for smelling. Touching and shared activities promote bonding and emotional attachment, which in turn establishes a relationship so that babies can “use the mature functions of the parent’s brain to organize its own processes” (Siegel, The Developing Mind, p. 91).
Flett’s illustrations do use big blocks of distinct colour in some spots, but different shades of one colour in others, so an infant over 3 months with more advanced eyesight would get more out of the pictures in My Heart Fills with Happiness than a younger baby. In Growing a reader from birth: Your child’s path from language to literacy Diane McGuinness confirms that newborns prefer black and white and bright primary colour contrast (p. 30).
For the purposes of language learning, the book does well with repetition: the phrase “my heart fills with happiness when” repeats four times, with a variation at the end of “what fills YOUR heart with happiness?” that encourages answering and asking questions between the parent and child. The other text in the book is simple sentences, all in the present tense starting with “I.” Some pages of text have sentences as short as “I sing” or “I drum.” Others have slightly longer sentences, like “I hold the hand of someone I love.” Although “my heart fills with happiness when” is not repeated before every sentence that completes it, it feels natural to repeat the phrase even when it is not written on the page while you are reading the book aloud.
Much of the text encourages touch and being active. It also frequently references the senses (seeing, smelling, feeling). “I see the face of someone I love” is followed by an illustration of a baby touching their mother’s face, implicitly encouraging both of them to touch each other’s faces. The text and illustration referencing hand holding perform the same function. References to smelling bannok, singing, dancing, drumming, and other activities easily invoke the idea to show the baby what is meant, by singing, dancing, or drumming in front of them, or touching your nose for smelling. Touching and shared activities promote bonding and emotional attachment, which in turn establishes a relationship so that babies can “use the mature functions of the parent’s brain to organize its own processes” (Siegel, The Developing Mind, p. 91).
Flett’s illustrations do use big blocks of distinct colour in some spots, but different shades of one colour in others, so an infant over 3 months with more advanced eyesight would get more out of the pictures in My Heart Fills with Happiness than a younger baby. In Growing a reader from birth: Your child’s path from language to literacy Diane McGuinness confirms that newborns prefer black and white and bright primary colour contrast (p. 30).