Bud Finds Her Gift

Indigenous Author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Illustrator: Naoko Stoop
Fiction, 2025
Hardcover

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass comes a beautiful and lushly illustrated tale celebrating gratitude, reciprocity, and finding our place in the natural world, ideal for sharing with the youngest readers.

When young Bud sees people bustling around, intent on their chores and their screens, she is certain they must be doing important things—and she wants to be included. But wise Nokomis, her grandmother, shows her that there is a different way to find belonging, one that relies on stillness and observing the natural world. As Bud discovers the freely given gifts of the Earth, she wonders if she has something important to give back: What is her gift?

Infused with warmth, humor, and insight, and beautifully illustrated by Naoko Stoop, the first picture book by renowned author and Indigenous ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer inspires readers to treasure nature’s generosity and the gifts each one of us can share with the Earth.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, writer, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants as well as Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Kimmerer is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow and was named to the Time list of the 100 Most Influential People of 2025. She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

Naoko Stoop’s love of drawing began when she was a young child growing up in Japan. Naoko now lives and paints in Brooklyn, New York. She uses found materials including plywood and brown paper bags as her canvas. She has illustrated a number of picture books, including her own Red Knit Cap Girl series, the first of which was named a New York Times Best Illustrated Book. Through her artwork, she hopes to inspire the child within everyone.

Harper Collins
40 pages
9.2 x 11.2
9780063324428