My Heart Speaks Kriolu

On Saturday walks with her grandfather, a young girl connects with her Cabo Verdean heritage while learning about the true meaning of home in this moving debut picture book.

Papa always speaks of someday bringing his granddaughter back home to Cabo Verde. But the young girl has never set foot on their ancestral island’s faraway shores. And each time Papa urges her to speak Kriolu, the Portuguese creole native to the West African country, the girl’s tongue betrays her, and she stumbles over her own words. If she can’t even get the language right, can her grandfather’s home ever truly be hers, too?

But each Saturday afternoon when she helps guide her sight-impaired grandfather through their close-knit Massachusetts community, the girl swears she can smell, hear, feel Kriolu. And each Saturday she comes closer to discovering where home truly lies.

Stefanie Foster Brown is a fourth-generation Cabo Verdean American whose grandparents were the last in her family to speak Kriolu. A former school psychologist, Stefanie spent part of her professional training researching the relationship between language, culture, and identity. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, Eli, their three kids, a dog, and one noisy parakeet. My Heart Speaks Kriolu, inspired by Stefanie’s memories of taking walks with her Papa in New Bedford, Massachusetts, is her debut book. Visit Stefanie at StefFosterBrown.com or on social media @StefFosterBrown.

Keisha Morris is an illustrator living and working in Maryland. What she loves about her illustration process most is creating characters whose personalities jump off the page. She earned her BFA in illustration at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and mentored with illustrators such as Sean Qualls, Selina Alko, and Dan Santat. When she is not drawing, she loves spending time with her wife, daughter, and two wild cats Elphie and Ollie.