“At the mountain’s base”… is a hickory tree. Beneath the tree is a cabin. Inside the cabin is a kitchen, with a stove, and simmering pans, and a grandma weaving “and worrying.” Around the grandma is a family “tending and singing” a song in which a battle unfolds. “In that battle soars a plane” piloted by a young woman “protecting and defending” as she prays for peace. The comforting cadence of this picture book featuring a contemporary Cherokee family concludes with an image of the pilot’s arrival home. The grandmother’s weaving serves as visual symbolism throughout a book that depicts how the young pilot is tethered to her family through bonds of love even as she soars, and even as they are motivation for why she has chosen her path. A story that depicts a specific, fictional family will surely resonate with many military families. An author’s note discusses the role women in American Indian and Alaskan Native nations have played in many conflicts, including Ola Mildred Rexroat, an Oglala Lakota WASP pilot in World War II, and many Native women in service today. (Ages 5–9)

A family, separated by duty and distance, waits for a loved one to return home in this lyrical picture book celebrating the bonds of a Cherokee family and the bravery of history-making women pilots.

At the mountain's base sits a cabin under an old hickory tree. And in that cabin lives a family -- loving, weaving, cooking, and singing. The strength in their song sustains them through trials on the ground and in the sky, as they wait for their loved one, a pilot, to return from war.

With an author's note that pays homage to the true history of Native American U.S. service members like WWII pilot Ola Mildred "Millie" Rexroat, this is a story that reveals the roots that ground us, the dreams that help us soar, and the people and traditions that hold us up.