The Cree Word for Love: Sâkihitowin

Bestselling author of Birdie, Tracey Lindberg, and renowned artist George Littlechild join together in a stunning collaboration of story and art to explore love in all its forms—romantic, familial, community and kin—in the Cree experience

In The Cree Word for Love, author Tracey Lindberg and artist George Littlechild consider a teaching from an Elder that in their culture, the notion of love as constructed in Western society does not exist. Here, through original fiction and select iconic paintings, Lindberg and Littlechild respond.

Together they have created and curated this collaboration which travels, season by season, mirroring the four rounds in ceremony, through the themes of the love within a family, ties of kinship, desire for romantic love and connection, strength in the face of loss and violence, and importance of self-love, as well as, crucially, a deeper exploration of the meaning of “all my relations.”  

Together, art and story inspire and move readers to recall our responsibilities to our human and more than human relations, to think about the obligation that is love, and to imagine what it could possibly mean to have no Cree word for love. The result is a powerful story about where we find connection, strength, and the many forms of what it means to live lovingly.

GEORGE LITTLECHILDis a Plains Cree artist who was born in Treaty No. 6 territory. He is internationally renowned for his work, and his extensive body of art is noted for its bold colours and playful images, which belie the serious undertones of his work. George lives a political life, and his work reveals the complexities of existence and autonomy for Indigenous peoples. His collages and painting grant viewers insight into the human spirit, the strong connection to our ancestors, the ways in which we view our worlds, and what needs to change.

ISBN: 9781443467780
Format: Hardback
Pages: 224
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: September 02, 2025