I love Kusugak’s books because he gives children and their parents a little glimpse into the Inuit culture and mythology. Quite different from the children’s books I remember as a child.
In his book Hide and Sneak, he tells the story of a girl, Allashua, who loves playing hide and seek. Before she ran off to play, her mother warned, “Don’t go too far away. An Ijiraq might hide you, and if an Ijiraq hides you, no one will ever find you again.
Allashua is not very good at hide and seek because she often sees something that will distract her from the game, like the time she saw a nest of baby birds. That was the time she heard a voice behind her.
“Hide-and-sneak, hide-and-sneak
How I love hide-and-sneak
I hide and you seek
You won’t find me for a week.”
It turned out to be the creature that her mom warned her about, an Ijiraq.
In his book Baseball Bats for Christmas, tells about childhood in Repulse Bay in the mid 1950’s. It is an autobiographical tale about Mr. Kusugak’s childhood in the arctic.
There are no trees in Repulse bay. The only way for the town to get any supplies was to wait for Rocky Parsons to come in his plane and drop them off at the Hudson’s Bay Company store. He not only brought in supplies but he came when someone was sick. He was the towns life line.
At Christmas time, it was expected that you gave your most favorite thing in the world to your best friend as a gift. No a duplicate of it but the thing you actually own yourself.
“Arvaarluk’s father gave his only telescope and got a wild dog in return.”
Rocky Parsons brought green things with “spindly branches”. One of the children knew that they were small trees from a book that he had read. No one knew what to do with them though. Then an idea came to one of the children.
In Michael Arvaarluk Kusugak’s book Northern Lights the Soccer Trails, we learn about the different seasons in Repulse Bay. The children’s favorite season is winter, when they can run around on the frozen sea ice and play soccer with a homemade ball.
“They made a soccer ball out of caribou skin and stuffed it full of dry moss and fur. Then at night, in the moonlight, they went out on the sea ice, set up two goals made of ice blocks and played.”
Sometime the northern lights appeared. They were said to be ancestors.
All three of these books are delightful! Some of the names are hard so most children would need the help of a parent to read the stories with them. The illustrations, done by Vladyanna Krykorka are stunning. These are books to keep for a lifetime and to pass them down from generation to generation.
Copyright 2007-2010: All the posts within this blog were originally posted by Teddy Rose and should not be reproduced without express written permission.
