The Girl Mechanic: Classic Crafts, Games & Toys to Build Book

This is one of the books in the superb series We Are Still Here, which are photojournalism books about modern Native Americans. I was particularly smitten with this one. I love pottery, I'm interested in the southwest, and I'm interested in Pueblo culture. I love that all involved with the creation of this book (author, photographer, and 2 series consultants) are all Native Americans, and that the author is a potter herself. Also, 3 of the 4 contributors reside in the southwest; the Pueblo family who are featured in this book live in northern New Mexico.

The photos are perfection: of the pottery (pots, animals, etc.), of the various family members (though I do wish more of the mentioned people had made it into some photos), of the earth, and the landscape. The children are all adorable. I love maps in books and the maps here tremendously enhance the book.

This extended family ranges from an infant to great grandparents. There are many family members, and they all work together, as is traditional, at every stage of pottery making. The children fully participate. The most fascinating parts for me were some of the early stages, including the trip to gather the clay from the earth and then later toward the end of the process I loved seeing the firing pit.

The reader learns about all the stages of this work, from getting the clay to selling the finished pieces, a process that takes quite a bit of time, though some of the time is time spent waiting for the clay to do its thing.

I appreciated how storytelling is part of this. There are a few short folk stories included that are inserted into this otherwise non-fiction account.

This is a very fortunate family, to have one another, to be able to work together, and to able to create such lovely pieces.

I'd love to spend some time in this area and learn and participate in traditional pottery making. I love this kind of art!

There are Tewa language words throughout the book, with their English language counterparts, and then there is a word list in the back of the book too. I found two new books from the series in the series list in the back of the book and added them. There are also eight books listed in the For Further Reading section in the back, and I had interest in all of them; the only reason I didn't add them is I'm trying to curtail my to-read adds and they're all a couple decades old, so I'm thinking there might be many more such books including some more recent ones.

This is a wonderful book for readers who enjoy family stories, are interested in extended families, in modern Native Americans, in pottery making, in reading stories about cultures, and who enjoy contemplating personal senses of identity and longstanding traditions of a people.

4 ½ stars