Aggie and Mudgy: The Journey of Two Kaska Dena Childen

 

Written by Wendy Proverbs

Wandering Fox (Heritage House)

978-1-77203-375-5

144 pp.

Ages 8-12

November 2021

They were lost in a void, 

not understanding where they would end up. (pg. 99)

While there are an increasing number of middle-grade books about residential schools, few discuss the journeys that Indigenous children were forced to take from their home to get to those residential schools. Aggie and Mudgy is one such story. But it's also a tale of loss: of family, of names, of culture. And it is as painful as their journey.

 

In contemporary Vancouver, eight-year-old Maddy has found an old photo in her Nan's desk and begs her grandmother to tell her the story of the two little girls. And so Nan does, recounting the story of two young sisters from Daylu, a Kasha Dena community on the BC-Yukon border. As history has shown us, the arrival of those of the Catholic church brought much change, as it did in Daylu, where the First Nations people were first forcibly assimilated by being renamed. 

When we name something, it gives us a kind of ownership, doesn't it? (pg. 96)

Sisters Mac-kinnay and Beep were renamed Agnes and Martha but they called themselves Aggie and Mudgy. Then two years later, the young sisters, only 6 and 8, were taken away by Father Allard to go to school far away. How far away they could not have known.

Though leaving their home would have been frightening, the beginning of their journey starts with some comfort and familiarity as the priest employs two Indigenous brothers to transport them down the Liard River. The landscape, the food and the language are still their own. But after 300 km, their journey after Dease Lake becomes one of newness. As the priest and the girls travel six weeks by mail truck, paddle wheeler boat, steamship and train to the Lejac Residential School at Fraser Lake in central BC, the girls soon realized that their old ways would not be tolerated. Not the language they spoke, not the way they looked, nor the joys they savoured in the outdoors. And if Priest Allard and the nuns who aided them in their journey were not pleased, the children were shamed and beaten.

They couldn't respect different people and cultures, and if the children didn't obey, some priests and nuns could be very cruel. (pg. 47)

The girls' journey with Father Allard was just over 1600 km but it was just the beginning of the inevitable trauma that would be their residency at the Lejac school. Wendy Proverbs could have walked us into that school with Aggie and Mudgy but she knew that the journey of these two Kaska Dena children was important enough to be highlighted. Still, the story is told to enlighten and to acknowledge, not traumatize-it doesn't, though it could have– and by revealing her own personal connection (see "Author's Note" and "Acknowledgements" in Aggie and Mudgy), and giving Nan one as well, Wendy Proverbs has made the sisters' story both restrained and profound. Don't be surprised if a tear is shed.

Because Aggie and Mudgy tells a story within a story, with fiction embracing history, Wendy Proverbs, herself of Kaska Dena descent, has honoured her heritage and her ancestors. In fact, a nod of appreciation should be given to her as she does to others in her acknowledgements for sharing Aggie and Mudgy and purposefully shaking up the universe with truth.

Final appreciation to all of our ancestors who led the way for future generations to speak, dance, create, and indeed disturb the universe. (pg. 130)

Story Boat

Written by Kyo Maclear

Illustrated by Rashin Kheiriyeh

Tundra

978-0-7352-6359-8

40 pp.

Ages 3-7

February 2020

A young girl and her little brother begin a journey with family and others, travelling from one "here" to another "here" and finding comfort where they may in a cup, a blanket, and especially in a story of hope.

From Story Boat by Kyo Maclear, illus. by Rashin Kheiriyeh

As they travel, the girl tries to explain the concept of "here" to her little brother. The concept can be a difficult one for very young children to grasp, especially as "here" is constantly changing for the travellers. But here becomes whatever is on hand that creates a permanency of people and emotion. It's the cup "Old and fine, warm as a hug" or a "song that every can sing." And, always, that cup or song, or blanket or lamp, or flower, becomes part of a story boat that takes the two children and their cat to see hope amidst a turbulent sea.

From Story Boat by Kyo Maclear, illus. by Rashin Kheiriyeh

Kyo Maclear, author of my favourite Virginia Wolf (2012), consistently tackles big issues by making them personal and intimate. Leaving one's home for something safer, travelling into uncertainty, and looking for hope wherever it may reside will sadly be familiar to most refugees looking for new homes after violence, persecution, and instability compels them to leave the homes they've always known.

Here is our journey
That holds the warmth of a cup,
The softness of a blanket,
The brightness of a lamp,
The strength of a flower
And the openness of a story.

Imagine what it must be like for young children for whom the destination is a grey hole of nothingness, unable to anticipate where home may be or who will be there or what it will look like. Kyo Maclear's wonderful child's storytelling transports them to a new here.

From Story Boat by Kyo Maclear, illus. by Rashin Kheiriyeh

Award-winning Iranian-born illustrator Rashin Kheiriyeh, who currently lives in Washington D.C., fuses the gravity of the refugees' lives with their comforts from home and hope for something good. She does this primarily through her palette of backgrounds of muted blue green and splashes of brightness in the oranges, though much is still black and white, not unlike their circumstances. However, Rashin Kheiriyeh's art, created with coloured pencil and watercolour, oil and acrylic paint, along with some cut paper and other media, also uses shape to infuse the story with the activity of movement, whether it is the travellers' journey on foot or on water or the children's jaunts by story boat. Thankfully, it's all forward from an old here to a new one.

Kyo Maclear and Rashin Kheiriyeh's Story Boat may be a story of those seeking refuge and children finding ways to cope with uncertainty but this story transports and guides just like their story boat. For them and for us, stories can save and illuminate new ways.

From Story Boat by Kyo Maclear, illus. by Rashin Kheiriyeh

Woodrow at Sea

Written and illustrated by Wallace Edwards

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-029-1

24 pp.

Ages 3-5

November 2017

Not since an owl and a pussycat set off to sea have two wholly unlikely friends shared a boat on the open water.  But the story of Woodrow at Sea is less love story than story of friendship and a far more poignant one than Edward Lear's nonsense poem.

From Woodrow at Sea 

by Wallace Edwards

When Woodrow, the elephant, waves goodbye to his family, setting off on his adventure with only a boat, a paddle and a spyglass, he could never imagine finding a small white mouse marooned on a purplish mound in the open water.  The mouse tells of his own tale of saying goodbye to his own family who gift him with a compass and heading out in a teacup vessel until upturned by a purple, gold and orange creature. 

From Woodrow at Sea 

by Wallace Edwards

Together the travellers set out to seek adventure, with the mouse teaching Woodrow to sing. When a foul cloud blows in nasty weather and the calm sea is awoken into turmoil, the little mouse uses the spyglass to rescue Woodrow. Together they battle their way to calmer waters and, though they both return to their different island homes, they're both richer for their encounter and adventures.

From Woodrow at Sea

by Wallace Edwards

Because Woodrow at Sea is a wordless book, author-illustrator Wallace Edwards allows his illustrations to carry the story.  But it really isn't just one story.  Everyone will read something different into his touching and considerate artwork.  Though less elaborate than his art in earlier books such as Once Upon a Line (Pajama Press, 2015) and Unnatural Selections (Orca, 2014), Wallace Edwards provides more than enough depth of detail for our youngest readers to interpret the illustrations in a myriad of ways.  They will easily recognize the value of friendship and teamwork but there will be questions.  Why did Wallace Edwards choose and elephant and a mouse? Are the elephant and mouse singing or whistling?  Does Woodrow know how to sing or did the mouse have to teach him?  Were the two animals planning on an extended adventure that was interrupted by calamity or were these just day trips? When recounting their adventures to family, why did they focus on different events though both emphasize the goodwill of the other?  For a story told with no words, Woodrow at Sea has much to tell.  And a lesson in creative thinking and visual literacy would not go amiss here.

Woodrow at Sea is truly a story about the importance of friendship and the good fortune of having a friend who has your back when seas get a little rough. It may not always be an angry ocean or a purple monster, but there's always something that is eased with the support of a friend.

From Woodrow at Sea 

by Wallace Edwards

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

Wallace Edwards will launch his newest picture book this weekend in Toronto. Details for this event were posted here.

Akilak's Adventure

by Deborah Kigjugalik Webster

Illustrated by Charlene Chua

Inhabit Media

978-1-77227-123-2

32 pp.

Ages 5-7

November 2016

“…your destination is not running away; it will be reached eventually.” (pg. 6)

This is now Akilak’s grandmother reassures the young girl when she sends her off on her own when the older woman injures herself.  Akilak must travel on foot to her uncle’s camp, hopefully reaching it before nightfall, so that she might get food which they had planned on replenishing during a hunting trip, now cancelled.

The journey across the tundra is long but making the acquaintance of Caribou who decides to accompany the young girl on her journey makes the distance more manageable.  As the two companions trek across the northern landscape, Akilak’s imagination has her wondering how much more quickly she could travel as a fish across the water, or a fleet-footed wolf across the land, or as a snow goose across the sky.  But when Caribou asks whether she would really choose to be an animal rather than a human, Akilak understands the value of being exactly who she is.

From Akilak's Adventure 

by Deborah Kigjugalik Webster 

illus. by Charlene Chua

From their shelter to their clothing and footwear, and their habits and the nuance of language, Deborah Kigjugalik Webster has accomplished what she set out to do: told a wonderful story contextualized in Inuit culture.  She may have intended this originally for her daughters but by wrapping in her own Inuit heritage the story of an imaginative young girl with a seemingly daunting task, Deborah Kigjugalik Webster has created a tale that will entertain, teach and inspire all.  Artist Charlene Chua, who has also illustrated Fishing with Grandma (Susan Avingaq and Maren Vsetula, 2016) and Leah’s Mustache Party (Nadia Mike, 2016) for Inhabit Media, adds an effortlessness to the realism of her illustrations.  Though depicting animals with representative flair, Charlene Chua keeps the energy of the story gentle, never miring her art in the enormity of Akilak’s mission but instead illustrating it as the adventure Deborah Kigjugalik Webster, Akilak and Caribou all recognize it to be. I wish I could adequately scan the double-spread illustrations to share the sweetness of Charlene Chua’s cartoon-like creations because they convey more completely the breadth of Akilak’s Adventure than my mere words can.

I’m sorry that I missed announcing the book launch for Akilak's Adventure which was held on November 13, 2016 at Kaleidoscope Kids’ Books in Ottawa but it's better to get the book late rather than never.  Akilak’s Adventure has timeless teachings about responsibility and the importance of imagination to make it a worthwhile read now and always.

From Akilak's Adventure 

by Deborah Kigjugalik Webster 

illus. by Charlene Chua