Annie and the Old One by Miska Miles, illustrated by Peter Parnall, 1971.
Annie is a Navajo girl who lives with her family in a traditional hogan. Her family keeps sheep, and Annie helps to tend them when she’s not at school. She also likes to listen to her grandmother’s stories.
One evening Annie’s grandmother tells the family that, by the time the new rug that Annie’s mother is weaving is finished, she will “go to Mother Earth”, meaning that the grandmother knows she is going to die. She asks each member of the family what they would like as a gift from her. When Annie looks at her grandmother’s weaving stick, her grandmother gives the weaving stick to Annie as a gift.
Annie asks her mother how her grandmother can know when she is going to die, and her mother says that many Old Ones like her grandmother can tell. Annie doesn’t want her mother to finish weaving the rug she is weaving, wanting to put off the rug being finished so her grandmother will live longer, but her mother knows that is useless, and the family needs to make rugs to sell.
To stop her mother from weaving, Annie tries to misbehave in various ways to distract her from her work. Then, she tries secretly undoing some of her mother’s weaving to delay the rug being finished.
When Annie’s grandmother realizes what she’s doing, she has a quiet talk with Annie. She explains that nobody can hold back time. The cycles of nature, life, and death must continue. Her grandmother’ talk helps Annie to understand and accept that her grandmother’s life and impending death are all part of a cycle. Rather than fight against the cycles of nature, Annie becomes part of the cycle by learning her grandmother’s craft of weaving.
The book is a Newbery Honor Book. It is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
I vaguely remember this book from when I was a kid, but I didn’t really remember the story, even when I reread it. I’m not entirely sure whether I actually did read it when I was young or if it was just a book that teachers or librarians recommended when I was young. I grew up in the Southwestern United States, not far from where the Navajo live, so it was common for us to read books of this type about Native Americans of the Southwest when I was young.
The story is a little sad, but in a gentle way. We don’t see the grandmother die, but the family, especially Annie, is starting to prepare for her loss. Annie’s grandmother also recognizes that part of her role is to help her family to understand and accept her own death. She tries to do this in a gentle but matter-of-fact way, and she gives each member of the family something from her belongings to use and to remember her by.
Part of Annie’s confusion about her grandmother’s impending death comes from the colorful way Annie’s grandmother expressed that she doesn’t expect to live much longer, saying that she will die by the time the rug is finished. The adults understand that this is a rough estimate of the amount of time the grandmother thinks she has left to live, but being a child, Annie takes it literally. She loves her grandmother and tries to keep her alive longer by delaying the completion of the rug until her grandmother helps her understand that it’s not the rug that really matters. Time will move forward, regardless, and changes will come with it. There is nothing Annie can do to change that. I liked it that, although this is hard for Annie to understand and accept, she does come to accept it.
By comparing the cycles of life and death to the cycles of nature, her grandmother helps Annie to see that what is going to happen is natural and that nature’s cycles have beauty to them. Earlier in the story, Annie’s grandmother and mother urge Annie to learn to weave and ask her if she’s ready. She wasn’t ready before, but at the end of the story, she decides that she is. Annie’s acceptance of the cycles of time and life help her to recognize her own growth and change and that she has a place in the cycle of her family as the next one to learn her family’s craft. Annie learning the craft continues the cycle of of her mother and grandmother. Her grandmother passing on her weaving stick is like passing the torch to Annie, making Annie part of her legacy and giving Annie a new role as one of the family weavers. Annie’s life will move forward through the loss of her grandmother, and she will have new roles to fill as she takes her place in the cycle of life.
