Book Event: Voices of Navajo Mothers and Daughters: Portraits of Beauty

In a series of intimate, revelatory personal histories, Navajo grandmothers, mothers, and daughters in twenty-one families tell their stories. They open up about how they have been shaped by powerful cultural and historical forces—and by their love for each other. In these compelling, multi-generational oral histories, collected by a former teacher with profound admiration for Navajo culture, women talk about their experiences in their own words. As they do, their faces are captured in defining portraits. Woven into the women’s stories are tales from Navajo history and culture, including Changing Woman, the coming-of-age ceremony (kinaaldá), the Long Walk, education, and the importance of sheep to Navajo lifeway.

“A valuable look at how Navajo women band together to celebrate life’s joys, push through adversity, and guide the next generation.” – Foreword Clarion Reviews

“(A) deeply moving, must-read for mothers and daughters everywhere.” – Chanticleer Reviews

Author Kathy Eckles Hooker grew up in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. She was introduced to Native American cultures as a child watching Native dancers perform at the Department of the Interior. She and her husband moved to the Navajo Reservation in the 1970s, where she taught English  to Dine students at Dilcon Boarding School. While there, Hooker studied Navajo traditional lifeways and from her research wrote Time Among the Navajo: Traditional Lifeways on the Reservation. She later taught English at Flagstaff Unified School District for 33 years, where again she worked with Dine students. During nearly forty-four years in Los Angeles, professional photographer David Young-Wolf became one of America’s top producers of stock photography. He later moved from stock photography to a niche shooting yoga, fashion photography, and creative portraiture, capturing evocative images for his clients while also working on personal photography projects. He now lives in and photographs Bend, Oregon.