Weather Menders

This may come as news to people in the eastern half of the US and Canada, and certainly to friends in Southcentral Alaska who just experienced their coldest winter on record, but here in Santa Fe, at an altitude of 7000 ft., we had no winter.

I found myself pulled into the world of author Mona Shomali’s Water Mamas on the first page, which paints a mysterious dream vision of a mermaid-like female spirit figure with an urgent message for the book’s main character, Afa. How will Afa balance her UN job, her understanding and respect for Indigenous sovereignty and human rights, and the possibilities and pitfalls of comb...