• Age: 5 to 9
• Grade: k to 3
• Reading age: 7 to 8

Mama always tells me stories on my birthday. She tells me the story of how I arrived in this world. They say I first came to them in a quiet dream and that I was a gift from our ancestors.For one Armenian child, birthdays are days for decorating the house with bunches of rose and mint and sumac, for eating beef dumplings with garlic yogurt, and for baking cakes with family and friends. But birthdays are also a time for telling stories—stories of ancestors and homelands, of births and new beginnings, and of the land their family now calls home. Because stories make up who we are; they are like rivers that lead into oceans, like seeds that fall from flowers, like pages of this book that come from trees. And the more stories that are told, the brighter this little child shines.

Kamee Abrahamian is a queer, feminist interdisciplinary artist, producer, and storyteller, born into an Armenian family displaced from the SWANA region. She lives on the traditional territories of the Anishinabewaki, Huron-Wendat, and Haudenosaunee peoples, also known as Prince Edward County, Ontario.

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Lusine Ghukasyan graduated from the Yerevan Academy of Fine Arts in Armenia and the Marseille Mediterranean College of Fine Arts and Design. She strives to add a touch of magic to all her illustrations for children.

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