Newswise — 'Twas many nights after Christmas and all through the house, the children are reading, quiet as a mouse . . .
When the stockings are empty, the tree is bare and the festive activity of December pales to the grey of January sleet, Canada's best multicultural picture books bring colour and life to children and adults alike, says Thompson Rivers University education professor Lynne Wiltse, who shares her favourites in time to wrap them up for the holiday season.
"Children have powerful responses to picture books because of the content, and because of the artwork," explains Wiltse. "It's about the value of the visual."
And visual they are.
"Northern Lights: The Soccer Trails, about a little Inuit girl growing up in the Arctic, has beautiful artwork," explains Wiltse, "while Share the Sky, in which a Chinese girl shares her knowledge of kites with her Canadian classmates, is filled with gorgeous watercolours."
Wiltse selected her picks from a set of 70 Canadian books of realistic fiction with some kind of a cultural focus identified by a national study involving 7 researchers from across Canada.
"Although all the books in the study were published in 1990 or later, some have an historical focus aimed at helping children from all backgrounds understand Canada's roots, like Shi-shi-etko, a pre-1960 aboriginal history for younger children which won the Aboriginal picture book of the year award, Ghost Train, a story of the building of Canada's railways that won the 1996 Governor General's Award for children's literature, and Josepha: A Prairie Boy's Story, about the difficulties encountered by a young immigrant boy from Eastern Europe in 1900.
"Every time I read Josepha, my heart-strings just get pulled," says Wiltse. "It's exquisitely written, almost like poetry."
But multicultural picture books aren't just about the many ethnicities making up Canada's cultural mosaic, explains Wiltse.
"Diversity also includes such aspects of the human as disability and sexual orientation, even geography," she added, pointing out that one of her picks is The Mummer's Song, a book about the almost-endangered centuries-old Newfoundland tradition, while another, The Moccasin Goalie, is a beautifully illustrated book about a young prairie boy with a crippled leg and foot who manages to play hockey despite the fact that he cannot wear skates.
The researchers' focus was on how student teachers respond to issues of national identity, ideology and representation as presented in contemporary multicultural Canadian picture books, and how to help them develop curriculum and methods sensitive to a diverse student population.
"One of the aspects of the study was based on the fact that those involved in teacher education programs are predominantly WASP, while student populations are increasingly multicultural," says Wiltse. "We wanted to know how multi-cultural books can help student teachers prepare for teaching culturally diverse classes.
Wiltse has plenty of experience in that regard. Before coming to TRU, she earned a master's degree in international intercultural education, and taught Aboriginal students in reserve schools in Alert Bay, Port Alberni and Anahim Lake, British Columbia. Three titles she's picked reflect these roots, including Caribou Song, written in English and Cree, the first book in a trilogy written by Tomson Highway entitled "Songs of the North Wind," A Coyote Columbus Story, an irreverent version of the Columbus story where Coyote is a 'she,' and A Man Called Raven, about traditional Aboriginal culture in a contemporary setting.
Since last holiday season, Wiltse has added two more Aboriginal-themed books to her list of favourites. Nokum Is My Teacher, the poetic story of a young Aboriginal boy posing questions to his "Nokum," or grandmother, about the wider world beyond the familiarity of the reserve, and Secret of the Dance, a dramatically illustrated story set in 1935, in which an Aboriginal boy and his family are spirited away by boat from Alert Bay to Kingcome Inlet where he witnesses a forbidden potlatch ceremony.
"The most important reason that I like Nokum Is My Teacher is because the poems have been written in English, and then translated to Cree. Bilingual books such as this are extremely important, as Cree is one of three Canadian Aboriginal languages, out of more than 50, that is not considered endangered," Wiltse explains.
"A CD reading is included, with music by the Northern Cree drumming group. I also love the accompanying illustrations, thickly brushed paintings of Cree life by an award-winning Cree artist."
Wiltse's choice of Secret of the Dance was partly based on her personal experiences teaching at the band-run school on the reserve in Alert Bay, which was located next to the U'mista Cultural Centre, built to house the returned potlatch collection which had been confiscated when potlatches were banned.
"I had the opportunity to attend several potlatches during the time I taught in Alert Bay, and to take students by boat on a field trip to Kingcome Inlet," says Wiltse. "This picture book is based on an incident from Alfred Scow's childhood; I knew some of the Scow family when I lived in Alert Bay. This book reminds me of those powerful experiences and will be an excellent resource to introduce children to this unfortunate aspect in British Columbian history."
Another book which provides a gentle introduction to an aspect of Canadian history that should be told, but not allowed to recur is Mr. Hiroshi's Garden, originally published as Flags.
Set on the Canadian West Coast during the Second World War, Mr. Hiroshi's Garden describes the friendship between Mary, a prairie girl visiting her grandmother for the summer, and Mr. Hiroshi, the next-door neighbour, who shares his garden with her until he is interned with the other Japanese-Canadians in the area. When Mary says goodbye to Mr. Hiroshi, she promises to look after his garden. She keeps her promise until the house is sold, and then honours the friendship by transplanting two of his irises, a variety called flags, in the soil of her prairie home.
"I like this book because it makes the topic of the internment of Japanese Canadians accessible to children," Wiltse says. "It is written in a simple style, and beautifully illustrated. This is a subject that Canadian students should learn about and I have had several student teachers teach this book to elementary-aged students with great success."
Another classroom favourite is the "enchantingly illustrated" M is for Maple: A Canadian Alphabet, says Wiltse. "It's not about teaching letters; it's about learning about Canada. It's a great book for lessons. One of my teacher candidates used it as a teaching tool for his Grade 6 practicum class, having students act out letter pages as still tableaux and having their classmates guess which letter and aspect of Canada they were representing."
Finally, in sync with the season, Wiltse rounds out her choices with No Two Snowflakes, a book with Christmas-card-perfect illustrations in which a Canadian girl tries to explain snowflakes to her African pen pal.
Wiltse, an author herself, had her award-winning doctoral dissertation on cultural and linguistic diversity in an inner-city school published as a book. This past spring she received $50,884 over three years from the premier Canadian granting agency, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), to examine ways to merge the out-of-school literacy resources with school literacy practices for intermediate-aged Aboriginal and other non-mainstream students in an inner-city school in Kamloops, where she has taught language, literacy and children's literature at Thompson Rivers University since 2002.
Works Cited
Bouchard, David. (2006). Nokum Is my teacher. (Allen Sapp, Illustr). Red Deer, Alberta: Red Deer Press.
Brownridge, W. R. (1995). The moccasin goalie. (P. Montpellier, Illustr). Victoria, BC: Orca Books.
Campbell, N. (2005). Shi-shi-etko. (K. La Fave, Illustr). Toronto, ON: Groundwood Books.
Davidge, B. & Wallace, I. (1993). The mummer's song. Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre.
Fitch, S. (2001). No two snowflakes. (J. Wilson, Illustr). Victoria, BC: Orca Books.
Highway, T. (2001). Caribou song. (B. Deines, Illustr). Toronto: Harper Collins.
King, T. (1992). A Coyote Columbus story. (W.K. Monkman, Illustr). Toronto: A Groundwood Book, Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.
Kusugak, M. (1993). Northern lights: The soccer trails. (V. Krykorka, Illustr). Toronto: Annick Press.
McGugan, J. (1994). Josepha: A prairie boy's story. (M. Kimber, Illustr). Red Deer, AB: Red Deer College Press.
Spalding, Andrea and Alfred Scow. (2006). Secret of the dance. (D. Gait, Illustr.). Victoria, BC: Orca Books.
Trottier, M. (1999). Flags. (P. Morin, Illustr). Toronto: Stoddart Kids.
-----. (2006). Mr. Hiroshi's garden. (P. Morin, Illustr). :Fitzhenry and Whiteside, (originally published as Flags)
Ulmer, M. (2001). M is for maple: A Canadian alphabet. (M. Rose, Illustr). Chelsea, MI: Sleeping Bear Press.
Van Camp, R. (1997). A man called Raven. (G. Littlechild, Illustr). San Francisco: Children's Book Press.
Ye, T. (1999). Share the sky. (S. Langlois, Illustr). Toronto: Annick Press.
Yee, P. (1996). Ghost train. (H. Chan, Illustr). Vancouver/Toronto: Groundwood/Douglas & McIntyre.
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