‘Fry Bread’ is the top-seller on Amazon’s children's Native American Books list
When Kevin Maillard, Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, became a parent, he looked around the children’s book landscape and noticed there were very few written about Native people today.
In fact, he said when he first started thinking about writing a children’s book in 2012, only six out of 3,600 were by or written about Native people. So he decided to write a children’s book of his own and “Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story” was born.
It would be four years before ‘Fry Bread’ would hit the market, but there was still work to be done.
Looking for someone to illustrate the book, Maillard wanted to find a person who was of Native ancestry or who had a personal connection to indigeneity. Ultimately, Peruvian artist Juana Martinez-Neal was chosen by Maillard and his editor but she was busy at the time. Maillard put the project on hold.
Another idea that came to Martinez-Neal early on was to have the end pages include the names of all the tribes across the United States, including state-recognized tribes and tribes who have applied for recognition. Along with Maillard, she said they wanted kids to feel recognized.
“My idea was for people finding their nations and you know, that feeling of reading your name, looking for it and finding it,” she said. “That feeling of being there, like part of it that you are seen.”
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