Two Picture Books About the Many Meanings of the Word ‘Go’

“Go” is such a little word, but what huge meaning it has. To most adults, it means responsibility: “We’re late, we have to go.” “Go take a shower!” “Yes, you do have to go to cross-country practice this afternoon.” “Go let that dog out before she pees on the rug.” “Stop talking and go to sleep!” Even yelling “Go!” at our kids’ basketball games has an air of desperation to it. “Go” means hurry, “go” means work, “go” means work harder. Frankly, most of the time I’d rather stay.

But “go” means something different to the young. Remember when “go” meant joy, when it meant freedom? When the feeling of wheels beneath you meant adventure? When buckling up in the back seat of the family car to go to the drugstore held the promise of a new comic book or a pouch of Big League Chew? When you rode a bike for the first time without fear and the wind was in your hair?

Remember how big that word was when you were small, when you just wanted to keep going?

Two new multilingual picture books present child’s-eye views of the word “go” in all its simplicity and complexity. Julie Flett’s “Let’s Go! haw êkwa!” and Kirsten Cappy and Yaya Gentille’s “Kende! Kende! Kende!” both capture its magic, though in many ways they could not be more different.

Written in English with Cree text interspersed, LET’S GO! HAW ÊKWA! (Greystone Kids, 44 pp., $19.95, ages 3 to 8) opens with a sound: “Cacussh! Cacussh! Cacussh!” It’s the sound of skateboard wheels on a concrete sidewalk, and the young boy at the center of the story is desperate to make it, since it means “go.” Go where? That’s not the point; it’s the wheels and the going itself that matter.

But for this boy, going is preceded by waiting: waiting for the skateboard from his mother (her own board, as it turns out, from when she was his age), waiting for confidence, waiting for belonging.