In this Byrd Baylor prose-poem classic, Indian children in the Southwest make a game of collecting pieces of ancient pottery and trying to fit the pieces together. Their parents remind them to treat the clay with respect because “every piece of clay is a piece of someone’s life” and every piece “has its own small voice and sings in its own way.” As the children carefully touch the pieces of clay, they listen for the songs they sing and think about the hands that shaped them. And as they examine the pottery’s designs, their imaginations conjure up details of the people’s lives who made and used this pottery. Bahti’s animated pen-and-ink drawings of the pottery’s primitive figures and designs won a prestigious Caldecott honor.
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