Newswise — Readers of all ages can take a trip across Canada this summer without leaving the living room or paying for so much as a half-tank of gas, says Thompson Rivers University education professor Lynne Wiltse, who shares her top-10 picks of Canada's best multicultural picture books.
Picking only 10 books was a challenge, says Dr. Wiltse, explaining that she selected her favourites from a set of 60 Canadian picture books of realistic fiction with some kind of a cultural focus identified by a national study involving six researchers from across Canada.
"We looked at culture in a broader sense than just ethnic diversity," explains Wiltse.
"Diversity also includes such aspects as disability and sexual orientation, even geography," she adds, 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 pre-service teachers respond to issues of national identity, ideology and representation as presented in contemporary multicultural Canadian picture books, and on the development of culturally sensitive curriculum and pedagogy for 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 mono-cultural (white middle class), while student populations are increasingly multicultural," says Wiltse. "We wanted to know how multicultural books can help student teachers prepare for teaching culturally diverse classes.
"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."
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, Flags, a book of powerfully coloured pictures about WWII Japanese internment told from a child's point of view, 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."
Two books on language round out Wiltse's top-10: Caribou Song, written in English and Cree, is the first book in a trilogy written by Thomson Highway entitled "Songs of the North Wind," while the enchantingly illustrated M is for Maple: A Canadian Alphabet is, says Wiltse, "not about teaching letters, but of learning about Canada. It's a great book for lessons.
"One of my teacher candidates used it as a teaching tool for a Grade 6 class, having students act out letter pages as still tableaux and having their classmates guess which letter and aspect of Canada they were representing."
Sticking to only ten titles was a major challenge for Wiltse, so, like any good teacher who throws some bonus questions onto a quiz, she can't help adding three more picks to the pile.
"If I could add a few more titles, they'd be A Coyote Columbus Story, an irreverent version of the Columbus story where Coyote is a 'she,' A Man Called Raven, about traditional Aboriginal culture in a contemporary setting, and No Two Snowflakes, a book with Christmas-card-perfect illustrations in which a Canadian girl tries to explain snowflakes to her African pen pal," says Wiltse.
Wiltse, whose doctoral dissertation on cultural and linguistic diversity in an inner-city school, completed in 2004, received a qualitative dissertation research award in 2005 and was published as a book, has taught language, literacy and children's literature at Thompson Rivers University since 2002. Before coming to TRU, she obtained a master's degree in international/intercultural education, and taught aboriginal students in reserve schools in Anahim Lake, Alert Bay, and Port Alberni, British Columbia. She received a TRU Teaching Excellence Award this past spring and has just received a major research grant to investigate the potential of third space theory to improve literacy learning for inner-city minority language learners in a school-university-community research collaboration.
Thompson Rivers University is a primarily undergraduate, teaching-focused public post-secondary institution located in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, offering trades, technology and career certificates and diplomas, and baccalaureate, post-baccalaureate and master's degrees through face-to-face and distance learning formats.
Works Cited
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: HarperCollins
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.
Trottier, M. (1999). Flags. (P. Morin, Illustr). Toronto: Stoddart Kids.
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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