Honouring Aboriginal ways: Cultural competence with diverse youngCanLit

This is the final booklist that I have compiled as part of my presentation at the Ontario Library Association's Superconference in Toronto recently all with the aim of helping individuals, schools and other institutions become culturally competent.

Today's post will focus on...

Akilak’s Adventure
by Deborah Kigjugalik Webster
Illus. by Charlene Chua
Inhabit Media
32 pp.
Ages 5-7
2016
Inuit, family, travel, tundra
Review here

Coyote’s New Suit
by Thomas King
Illus. by Johnny Wales
Key Porter
40 pp.
Ages 5-8
2004
Trickster, self-acceptance

The Diamond Willow Walking Stick
by Leah Marie Dorion
Michif translation by Norman Fleury
Gabriel Dumont Institute
48 pp.
Ages 8-12
2012
Métis, generosity, Michif, dual-language

Dragonfly Kites/Pimithaagansa
by Tomson Highway
Illus. by Julie Flett
Fifth House Publishers
32 pp.
Ages 4+
2016
Cree, Northern Manitoba, summer, play
Review here

Fishing with Grandma
by Susan Avingaq and Maren Vsetula
Illus. by Charlene Chua
Inhabit Media
32 pp.
Ages 5-7
2016
Inuit, fishing, grandmothers, Arctic
Review here

Games of Survival: Traditional Inuit Games for Elementary Students
by Johnny Issaluk
Inhabit Media
60 pp.
Ages 7+
2012
Inuit, Arctic, games, skills, survival
Review here

Grandmother Ptarmigan
by Qaunaq Mikkigak and Joanne Schwartz
Illus. by Qin Leng
Inhabit Media
24 pp.
Ages 0-4
2013
Origin story, Inuit
Review here

The Hill
by Karen Bass
Pajama Press
256 pp.
Ages 12+
2016
Cree, survival, legends, supernatural beliefs, tolerance
Review here

I Am Not a Number
by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer
Illus. by Gillian Newland
Second Story Press
32 pp.
Ages 7+
2016
Non-fiction, residential schools, First Nations
Review here

Looks Like Daylight
by Deborah Ellis
Groundwood Books
256 pp.
Ages 12+
2013
Abuse, residential schools, ostracism
Review here

Mingan My Village
Poems by Innu schoolchildren
Illus. by Rogé
Fifth House
42 pp.
Ages 7-11
2014
Innu, Mingan Indian Reserve, Quebec

Nokum is My Teacher
by David Bouchard
Art by Allen Sapp
Red Deer Press
32 pp.
All ages
2015
Cree, CD, questions, dual-language, grandmothers

Not My Girl
by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
Illus. by Gabrielle Grimard
Annick Press
36 pp.
Ages 6-9
2014
Inuit, residential school, family, language
Review here

The Owl and the Lemming
by Roselynn Akulukjuk
Illus. by Amanda Sandland
Inhabit Media
32 pp.
Ages 5-7
2016
Owls, lemming, predator-prey
Review here

P’ésk’a and the First Salmon Ceremony
by Scott Ritchie
Groundwood Books
32 pp.
Ages 4-7
2015
Sts’ailes, salmon, ceremony

The Sharing Circle
by Theresa Meuse
Illus. by Arthur Stevens
Nimbus Publishing
52 pp.
Ages 8-13
2003
First Nations, Mi’kmaq

Shi-Shi-Etko
by Nicola I. Campbell
Illus. by Kim La Fave
Groundwood Books
32 pp.
Ages 4-7
2005
Residential school

Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox
by Danielle Daniel
Groundwood Books
36 pp.
Ages 4-7
2015
Anishinaabe, totem animals
Review here

Sweetest Kulu
by Celina Kalluk
Illus. by Alexandria Neonakis
Inhabit Media
32 pp.
Ages 0-4
2014
Babies, Inuit, animals, Arctic, lullaby
Review here

Downloadable booklist available here

Becoming Culturally Competent with Diverse youngCanLit

Last week, I presented a talk on cultural competence at the Ontario Library Association's Superconference in Toronto.  The premise behind the talk was the need for schools, libraries and all institutions to go beyond tolerance and acceptance and become culturally competent.  To that end, I shared lists of some books (but only a fraction of a fraction of the books that could  be included!) of youngCanLit that could be used to support that endeavour, and thought that perhaps others might benefit from them as well.

If diversity is a window into other cultures, races, ethnicities, sexualities, families and individuals, then cultural competence is a mirror or a sliding glass door into those same identities. It is based on three main premises:

• recognizing the differences among students and families from different cultural groups;
• responding to those differences positively; and
• interacting effectively in a range of cultural environments.

(Lindsey, R.B., Robins, K.N. and Terrell, R.D. 2003. 

Cultural proficiency: A manual for school leaders. 

Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press)

I based my presentation on seven foci that need to be understood and honoured in order to become more culturally competent.  There were:

• cultures
• languages
• races and ethnicities
• gender identities and sexualities
• capacities and abilities
• family life
• Aboriginal ways of knowing and being

Becoming culturally competent is a tall order but one which must be addressed in order to become a considerate and full-functioning member of society.  Everyone should be culturally competent, and awareness through youngCanLit is a great first step.

I hope these booklists, which I will present in a series of 7 posts, will help readers to come closer to achieving that end.

Let's begin with today's post focusing on...

Alego
by Ningeokuluk Teevee
Groundwood Books
24 pp.
Ages 3-7
2009
Inuit life

Chin Chiang and the Dragon’s Dance
by Ian Wallace
Groundwood Books
32 pp.
Ages 4-8
1994/1998
Chinese, dance, celebration

From Lands of the Night
by Tololwa Mollel
Illus. by Darrell McCalla
Red Deer Press
32 pp.
Ages 7+
2014
Tanzania, illness, ancestors, celebration
Reviewed here

Games of Survival: Traditional Inuit Games for Elementary Students
by Johnny Issaluk
Inhabit Media
60 pp.
Ages 7+
2012
Inuit, Arctic, games, skills, survival
Reviewed here

Greetings, Leroy 
by Itah Sadu
Illus. by Alix Delinois
Groundwood Books
32 pp.
Ages 4-7
2017
Immigration, Jamaica

Haiti My Country
Haitian schoolchildren
Illus. by Rogé
Fifth House Publishers
44 pp.
Ages 7-11
2014
Haiti, nature, poetry

Hand Over Hand
by Alma Fullerton
Illus. Renné Benoit
Second Story Press
24 pp.
Ages 5-8
2017
Philippines, fishing

The Hill
by Karen Bass
Pajama Press
256 pp.
Ages 12+
2016
Cree, survival, legends, supernatural beliefs, tolerance
Reviewed here

Lights for Gita
by Rachna Gilmore
Illus. by Alice Priestley
Second Story Press
24 pp.
1994
Hinduism, Diwali

Malaika’s Costume
by Nadia L. Hohn
Illus. by Irene Luxbacher
Groundwood Books
32 pp.
Ages 3-7
2016
Trinidad & Tobago, Carnival, absentee mother
Reviewed here

Mission Mumbai: A novel of sacred cows, snakes, and stolen toilets
by Mahtab Narsimhan
Scholastic Canada
272 pp.,
Ages 9-12
2016
India, Hinduism, Mumbai
Reviewed here

The Mummer’s Song
by Bud Davidge
Illus. by Ian Wallace
Groundwood Books
32 pp.
Ages
2009
Newfoundland, mummering, song

My Two Grandmothers
by Diane Carmel Léger
Illus. by Jean-Luc Trudel
Nimbus Publishing
32 pp.
Ages 4-8
2016
French Acadian, Scottish, grandmothers
Reviewed here

P’ésk’a and the First Salmon Ceremony
by Scott Ritchie
Groundwood Books
32 pp.
Ages 4-7
2015
Sts’ailes, salmon, ceremony

Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox
by Danielle Daniel
Groundwood Books
36 pp.
Ages 4-7
2015
Anishinaabe, totem animals
Reviewed here

The Tiffin
by Mahtab Narsimhan
Dancing Cat Books
190 pp.
Ages 8-13
2011
India, abandonment, working children
Reviewed here

Treasure for Lunch
by Shenaaz Nanji
Illus. by Yvonne Cathcart
Second Story Press
28 pp.
Ages 4-8
2000
Indian food,  shame, immigration

The Trouble with Dilly
by Rachna Gilmore
HarperCollins Canada
162 pp.
Ages 7-10
2009
Immigration, cultural conflict, hockey, India, Hungary

When the Rain Comes
by Alma Fullerton
Illus. by Kim La Fave
Pajama Press
32 pp.
Ages 4-8
2016
Sri Lanka, monsoons, rice-planting, oxen, floods
Reviewed here


Downloadable book list available here

Missing Nimâmâ

Written by Melanie Florence

Illustrated by François Thisdale

Clockwise Press

978-0-9939351-0-7

32 pp.

Ages 8+

October, 2015

Missing Nimâmâ is a stunning accomplishment in story telling, though a story that shouldn’t have to be told because no mother should go missing and be lost to a little girl who would grow up without her.  Reading Missing Nimâmâ (nimâmâ is Cree for my mother) is like exposing an wound and it hurts.

Missing Nimâmâ is told in two voices,  distinguished both on the page and with the font.  The first voice is that of Kateri, a young girl, who lives with her nôhkum (grandmother) and dreams and longs for nimâmâ who is one of the lost Indigenous women whose disappearances have been shamefully ignored.  The second voice, in italicized text, is an ethereal one, that of Kateri’s mother, who calls her daughter kamâmakos, her beautiful little butterfly, and who watches over her as she goes to school, is loved by her nôhkum, grows into a young woman, marries and becomes a mother herself.  With every milestone, Kateri wishes for her mother to be with her, occasionally sensing her spiritual presence, while her mother appreciates all that her daughter has become, reassurring her that,

“I’m here, kâmamakos.

I’ve never left you. 

When you feel me with you, I’m there. 

You’re never alone.

Your mother is still watching over you.”

(pg. 17)

But like far too many of the Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women, Kateri’s nimâmâ is only a spiritual presence in her daughter’s life and it will be years before Kateri will get the phone call telling her of her mother’s fate.  It is not a happy ending, and there are no happy endings for these women or their families.  But Melanie Florence still allows for Kateri and vicariously for her mother to find some happiness.

Missing Nimâmâ is heartbreaking.  It’s soulful and breathtakingly painful, and all the more so because of Melanie Florence’s free verse text. Never have I read free verse so aptly applied in a picture book.  Melanie Florence, an Indigenous writer, has demonstrated a powerful skill at creating rhythmic emotions with words.  The tugs at the heart are aching for the story they tell and the artistry with which François Thisdale tells it.

The matching of François Thisdale’s art with Melanie Florence’s text is wondrous.  As poignantly as he used mixed media (digital and drawn images) in earlier texts (The Stamp Collector by Jennifer Lanthier, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2012; That Squeak by Carolyn Beck, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2015), François Thisdale fluidly bridges the concrete world of a little girl and her nôhkum with the ethereal one of her mother.  His choice of colours and the ability to enrich stark outdoor scenes of yards and forests and simply furnished indoor rooms create ghostly landscapes that epitomize the shadows of a girl's longing for her mother, a mother lost but never, never forgotten.

Missing Nimâmâ is a haunting story of lives lost and lived and shared, beautifully rendered in words and art.  Expect to see this one on award lists in the near future.

Totem: Book Launch (Burlington, ON)

Join

Jennifer Maruno

author of

Warbird (Napoleon, 2010)
When the Cherry Blossoms Fell (Dundurn, 2009)
Cherry Blossom Winter (Dundurn, 2012)
Kid Soldier (Dundurn, 2013)

for the book launch of her newest historical fiction title

Totem

by Jennifer Maruno
Dundurn

978-1-459719347

136 pp.

Ages 9-12

July, 2014

on

Sunday September 7, 2014

2 p.m.

at

A Different Drummer Books

513 Locust St. 

Burlington, ON
905-639-0925

Here's the blurb that the publisher Dundurn has posted on their website about Totem.  You can read more at Jennifer Maruno's website here.

As an orphaned white boy in a school full of Native students, fourteen-year-old Jonny Joe isn't like any of the others at the island Redemption Residential School off the west coast. When the advances of Father Gregory disturb Jonny, he joins another boy in an escape to a mountain cave. But when they leave the cave, the world as they knew it no longer exists. 

The boys travel to a native village in a sheltered bay, where Jonny becomes skilled in the art of carving. When a steamship enters the cove, the party of sightseers brings a disease that annihilates most of the people in the village. Meanwhile, Jonny has learned the secret of his past and when he returns to the present, Jonny carves a totem pole to honour the members of the village.

Retrieved from 

http://www.dundurn.com/books/totem 

on August 13, 2014.

Red River Stallion: Guest Review 2

by Troon Harrison

Bloomsbury

978-1599908458

304 pp.

Ages 10-14

2013

Dear Troon Harrison,

    First of all, I just wanted to say that your book was awesome! I really enjoyed it and couldn’t put it down. It held my attention throughout the whole book, and that’s saying something, because I like novels that are exciting, and your’s fit the bill! I am an extremely soft-hearted person, and I felt so bad for Amelia and her beloved family, especially when the letter from Amelia’s father was hidden, and the family had thought that he had abandoned them.
    Throughout the book, I was able to connect to many of Amelia and Charlotte’s experiences. I can remember as a younger girl being so captivated of a gorgeous horse, and not being able to look away, just like Amelia when she saw Foxfire. I also can remember being so desperate to have a guide that I would look in the rarest spots, just as Amelia looked for her pawaken. By the end of the book, I can infer that Amelia realized that she didn’t need a pawaken, and that she was strong enough to face her own problems.
    Out of ten, I would rate your book a 9 because it was very exciting and I wanted the book to go on and on forever. One slight area that was not as enjoyable for me was how I had to reread some sections over and over before they made sense. Overall though, I loved your book and I beg you to write another one about Amelia and Charlotte’s adventures by the Red River with their beloved father and Foxfire.

Sincerely,

Grace D
Age 12

Red River Stallion: Guest Review 1

by Troon Harrison

Bloomsbury

978-1599908458

304 pp.

Ages 10-14

2013

Red River Stallion is a moving, deep story that perfectly portrays the struggle to find one's identity and destiny.  The author was able to capture how difficult it is to find one's purpose and future in the world, using the life of Amelia Otterchild, and kept me engaged throughout the entire read.

Red River Stallion is centered around a young Cree girl named Amelia, who is alone to look after her younger sister since the death of her mother and the disappearance of her father.  She is able to get a glimpse of happiness when she befriends a beautiful stallion the she presumes to be her soul guardian, but the only way for Amelia to remain with him is to travel with her sister to the Red River Valley, the last known location of her father.  As she journeys, frightened and hopeful, Amelia is faced with challenges of all kinds, from raging storms to sickening grief.  But by making new friends and accepting truths of the past, Amelia perseveres to continue her search for her father, comforted by the love of her family and close companions.

What was most enjoyable about Red River Stallion was the character depth.  Amelia's outside appearance showed courage, curiosity and a deep passion for horses.  But the inner conflict she felt was also very powerful, a battle between grief from the past and hope for the future.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading about all of these feelings inside of her, and seeing the way she changed as the good began to overpower the bad.

I also enjoyed the culture that was woven into the Red River Stallion story.  Through reading about Amelia and her adventures, I discovered many interesting truths of First Nations history that I had not been aware of before reading.  Their beliefs, their habits, and their very lives were expertly scattered throughout the story, and kept me fascinated cover to cover.

All in all, Red River Stallion was an expertly written, wonderfully detailed story that kept my interest through every chapter.  It was bursting with culture, inner conflict and themes of hope, renewal and friendship.  I can confidently rate it with nine stars out of ten, and would certainly recommend it to any reader.

Niki, Age 12