The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito

by Tomson Highway

Illustrated by Sue Todd

Fifth House Publishers

978-1-92708-338-3

70 pp.

Ages 14-18

October 2016

Think of The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito as an illustrated script, a script of “a one-woman musical in one act” and it’s the story of Mary Jane Mosquito, the only female mosquito born without wings.  Dedicated to “disabled children everywhere. Because they make our world a special place to live in”, the story is both light-hearted and heartbreaking–quite a workout for the heart–with a powerful lesson about acceptance of self and others.

The book opens, as any script will, with information about place, time and characters (here, dramatis personae) and the scene heading.  There is a vamp playing just before a voice from offstage announces “the one and only, the very talented, and the very beautiful, Miss Mary Jane Mosquito” (pg. 9). Though the child who eventually comes out on stage, bedecked in a top hat and oversized coat of tails, is a little surprised by the audience, she goes on to tell them her story, starting with the secret that she doesn’t have any friends or know how to make them.

From The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito 

by Tomson Highway, 

illus. by Sue Todd

Peppering her monologue with songs, as “singing is the only thing I know how to do” (pg. 12), and teaching the audience some mosquito (or is it Cree or Ojibway?) words like friend (“weecheewaagan”) and song (“nagamoon”), Mary Jane tells of growing up in Petit Petit Le Paw, northern Manitoba, and trying to find a connection between her lack of friends and her lack of wings.  At Miss Kathleen B. Curdew’s Centre for Education of Very Young Mosquitoes, her teacher Miss Maggie May Ditchburn would cruelly make an example of Mary Jane and, in insisting they repeatedly sing while marching, almost drives out Mary Jane’s love for singing.

From The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito 

by Tomson Highway, 

illus. by Sue Todd

Eventually Mary Jane convinces her parents to send her to Winnipeg to stay with her Aunt Flo, hopeful of a better school life.  Sadly, there she finds herself the only mosquito in a school of flies, moths, hornets and more.  A brave attempt at making a friend is thwarted and Mary Jane, surprisingly, sees red and attacks Minnie Matouche.  Her Aunt Flo wisely tells Mary Jane that “You don’t trust yourself.  You don’t love yourself. And therefore you don’t let others trust you or love you” and recommends, along with a change in venue (to wherever the cabaret is being performed), that “when you show ten times the kindness, to others, sooner or later, it will come back to you, ten times ten times ten.” (pg 51) Even knowing that the corollary is also true, i.e., that doing something bad will also come back at you, ten times ten times ten, Mary Jane at 16, sets off by train for Ontario.  And now here she is, singing and making friends with members of the audience, and telling them

I don’t need wings to fly.  I can fly on my own just fine, thank you, in my heart.  It’s not what you look like that matters, Aunt Flo’s words ring in my ears like chimes in the wind, it’s what you give to others that counts. (pg. 64)

The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito is a full read.  There is dialogue and details of the character’s actions on stage, and verses of song and choruses, and audience participation, and production notes (it was originally performed at Stratford in 2001) and it’s a brilliant vehicle for teaching, reading, and performing.   The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito is a book sated with lessons and wisdom in a unique format, a little girl performing on stage to an audience with whom she is to become friends.

Because The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito has the feel of a folktale, a oral story told to teach, Sue Todd’s lino cut illustrations work perfectly in carrying the story from opening music to curtain drop.  The art is bold in line and shape and colour, popping off the page in emphatic presentation, not unlike Mary Jane herself.  There’s emotion and a self-assuredness to Sue Todd’s art that invites the reader to partake in the drama within.  With Tomson Highway’s evocative text and Sue Todd’s powerful art,  The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito could be a condemnation of the residential school system or of communities that still have not embraced diversity, but at its heart it just conveys the message that we don’t all have to be the same and that love and friendship can surmount just about anything.

Illustration from The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito 

by Tomson Highway, 

illus. by Sue Todd

Image retrieved from http://www.suetodd.com

Dragonfly Kites / Pimithaagansa

by Tomson Highway

Illustrated by Julie Flett

Fifth House Publishers

978-1-89725-263-5

32 pp.

Ages 4+

March 2016

The two young Cree brothers from Tomson Highway’s Caribou Song (Fifth House, 2013) return in a new release of the second tale from the author and playwright’s Magical Songs of the North trilogy. This time the boys and their parents and dog Ootsie are heading to spend the summer further north in Manitoba.

From Tomson Highway’s reminiscent text and Julie Flett’s creative and evocative illustrations, Dragonfly Kites takes readers to a simpler time and one deep in traditions. A time of traveling north by canoe and erecting a tent by a lake so papa and mama could fish while the boys played by themselves on land, and “think up games with made-up toys.” (pg. 6) The boys are only limited by their imaginations and because their imaginations are so expansive, there are no constraints on their play.

They create personalities from sticks.  They make friends of terns, loons, rabbits, and eaglets.  And they create magical kites from dragonflies and string. But even after the sun sets and the boys are asleep, their dragonfly kites take them on wondrous adventures.

From Dragonfly Kites by Tomson Highway, illus. by Julie Flett

The story of Dragonfly Kites is both uplifting and calming and beautifully captivated by Julie Flett’s illustrations.  The clean lines of her art may appear to be stark but they conjure the lavish environment of the lakes and north of Tomson Highway’s story so persuasively that any “more” would have been too much.

Like Caribou Song, Dragonfly Kites is presented in English and Cree and shares another aspect of traditional Cree ways, the summer in the north. While most young readers could not imagine a whole summer away from their technology, Joe and Cody demonstrate the richness of a life based in family, the natural world and imaginative play is more than enough to fill their days and their dreams.

Caribou Song / Atihko Nikamon

by Tomson Highway

Illustrated by John Rombough

Fifth House Publishers

978-1-89725-261-1

32 pp.

Ages 4+

June, 2013

Joe and Cody are two brothers who travel with their parents by dog sled across the tundra all year round.  Joe plays the kitoochigan, an accordion, while his younger brother dances.  At one stop, a large rock in the middle of a meadow seems a fine spot for music and dance, especially when singing, "Ateek, ateek! Astum, astum!" ("Caribou, caribou! Come, come!"). Engrossed in their play, the two boys do not hear the rumbling of thousands of caribou heading their way, even though young Cody has fallen onto the caribou moss below.  While their parents fear for the boys' safety, the rapids of powerful beasts carry the boys along and the mystical voice of the herd invites them to know the caribou spirit.

Tomson Highway, award-winning Canadian and Cree playwright and author, originally offered this tantalizing story in 2001, illustrated by Brian Deines (HarperCollins, 2001). This new edition, illustrated by Chipewyan Dene artist John Rombough,  emphasizes the intensity of the story, specifically the emotional experience of the boys amidst the enormity of and the potentially fatal caribou run.  The bold and rich tones of blues and purples, strongly outlined in unrelenting black visually depict the fierce, almost violent nature of the landscape and the caribou in run.  The intermittent golden hues of the sky and other backgrounds lend a warm cushion that provides relief from the terror and hostility of the boys' circumstances.  

Presented in English and Cree, Caribou Song will take young readers to a world fast disappearing: one of a frozen landscape of snow and traditional hunting and life on the tundra.  For those readers who can appreciate the high Cree translation of Caribou Song, this new edition suggests that there are still valuable ways to retain their ancestral ways.