Two Tribes by Emily Bowen Cohen
Reviewed By: Alice Mitchell, Youth Services Manager
Genre: Graphic novel realistic fiction
Suggested Age: Kids (8-12)
What is This Book About? Mia’s preparing for her bat mitzvah at her new Jewish school, but she’s been struggling. Her mom refuses to talk about Mia’s Native American dad, and Mia feels like she’s missing half of herself. She hatches a plan to use her bat mitzvah money to visit him without her mom’s permission. Once she gets to Oklahoma, she’s thrilled to explore her Muskogee (Creek) heritage and finds out it’s just as important to her as her Jewish heritage.
My Review: I really enjoyed watching Mia’s journey of self-discovery. It was great to see how each character had a different way of celebrating their own heritage, and because Mia was learning about her Muskogee culture, I got to learn about it at the same time. I was familiar with some of the Jewish traditions as well, and it made me homesick to see the book characters enjoying challah and matzo ball soup. Knowing this graphic novel is inspired by the authors own life is interesting too, and I appreciated the Mvskoke language glossary and Mvskoke Language Program app recommendation in the backmatter.
Three Words that Describe this Book: affirming, faithful, multicultural
Give This A Try if You Like… American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, You Are Here: Connecting Flights by Ellen Oh, New Kid by Jerry Craft
Rating: 4/5
