scholarly journals A Children’s Guide to Arctic Butterflies by M. Pelletier

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell

Pelletier, Mia. A Children’s Guide to Arctic Butterflies. Iqaluit, NU.: Inhabit Media, 2019. This volume is part field guide and part art book.  Like many field guides, it begins with general material about butterflies: distinguishing them from moths, describing their life cycle and how they survive in winter.  The remainder of the book is made up of accounts for 12 different species. Each account has a genus species name, a physical description and a habitat description, and explanations of how they fly, what the caterpillar looks like, how they winter and a “fluttering fact.” Accompanying each account are two small images of the upper and lower side of the butterfly and a full-page image of the insect in its habitat. The descriptions are detailed and interesting. For example, Pelletier tells us that, “Arctic butterflies can dry out all of their body tissues and freeze solid, thawing in the spring when the Arctic warms again.” The real joy of this book, however, is Danny Christopher’s illustrations. Christopher will be familiar to Inhabit Media readers as the illustrator of the Legend of the Fog and A Children’s Guide to Arctic Birds. Each full page illustration is a larger-than-life picture of a butterfly, rendered in muted tones that are lifelike, and match the environment. Christopher has replicated the natural greens, oranges and blacks of the lichen on rock. A child seeing a butterfly in the North could easily use this book to identify it. This is an excellent contribution to Northern children’s wildlife books. Since some of the butterflies are circumpolar, this book is recommended for all Canadian school and public libraries and for those in other Arctic countries. Highly recommended:  4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Sandy Campbell  Sandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines. Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give. 

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell

Pelletier, Mia.  A Children’s Guide to Arctic Birds.  Iqaluit, NV:  Inhabit Media Inc., 2014. PrintMia Pelletier is an ecologist who, since 2010, has worked with seabird populations in Nunavut.  In this children’s field guide, she introduces fourteen species of Arctic birds.  Each bird is introduced in two pages. One full page displays Danny Christopher’s illustrations of the birds and the facing page provides the natural history of the species.  Each description includes both English and Inuktitut names, though notably, not the standard Latin name.  The text is broken into easy to read paragraphs for:  physical description, where to look for the birds, what they eat, the sounds they make, nests, eggs, chicks and where the birds winter.  In addition to the species descriptions, Pelletier has supplied helpful sections including a coloured chart of the birds’ eggs, a size comparison chart, and comparative descriptions of the birds’ feathers, bills and feet.   In addition to her own knowledge, Pelletier has based her work on research, including visiting a museum in Iceland to view species and eggs that she had not seen in the wild.Danny Christopher’s watercolours are excellent representations of the birds.  Every species could easily be identified from the paintings.  Each image page also contains a “Feathered Fact” that tells the reader something special about the bird.  For example:  “Long-tailed ducks like to sneak their eggs into the nests of other long-tailed ducks”.Overall, this is an excellent introduction to common Arctic birds, which could be used to learn about the birds or as a guide for field identification.  This work is highly recommended for public libraries and elementary school libraries.Highly Recommended:  4 stars out of 4Reviewer:  Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give. 


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell

Sometimes I Feel Angry /   Sometimes I Feel Nervous / Sometimes I Feel Jealous /   Sometimes I Feel Lonely /   Sometimes I Feel Sad. Illus. Amanda Sandland. Iqaluit: Inhabit Education, 2017. The Nunavummi Reading Series from Inhabit Education situates emotional literacy learning in the Canadian Arctic. These books are part of a leveled reading series and are graded at Fountas & Pinnell Text Level J (books designed to be read aloud to young children). Amanda Sandland’s illustrations are spare and uncluttered.  Backgrounds are plain or contain simple landscapes. The characters developed by Ali Hinch are anthropomorphized animals representing small children.  The nervous caribou has a hat and satchel and Aqi, the sometimes sad and lonely bird, has boots. Some of the characters appear in several books. One of the most helpful things about these books is that the resolutions are realistic. The characters display real emotions and reactions. These situations are resolved through talking with friends and recognizing which responses are healthy and which are not. There are none of the trite “quick-fixes” that so often appear in children’s books related to emotions. There are many children’s series that address emotions, but because these books are set in the Arctic and use Arctic animals, children in the North will be more comfortable with the content. The characters do things that Northern children would do: playing one-foot high kick, looking for fossils, picking berries, ice-fishing and going sliding. Children who do not live in Northern environments will be able to learn more about the North, as well as about emotions. This is a high-quality, relatively inexpensive series that is highly recommended for elementary school libraries and public libraries.  Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Sandy Campbell Sandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines. Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell

Flaherty, William.  Arctic Wolf. Illustrated by Sean Bigham. Inhabit Media, 2018. Karpik, Joanasie.  Bowhead Whale. Illustrated by Sho Uehara. Inhabit Media, 2018. Paniaq, Herve.  Walrus. Illustrated by Ben Shannon. Inhabit Media, 2017.   Inhabit Media has published three more volumes in their successful “made in the Arctic” Animals Illustrated Series. Herve Paniaq’s Walrus, Joanasie Karpik’s Bowhead Whale and William Flaherty’s Arctic Wolf follow the pattern of the earlier works in this series (see review https://doi.org/10.20361/G2NM3W). Each book is a natural history of the animal, including range, physical characteristics, diet, babies, and fun facts. Each book also has one or two sections specific to the animal. For example, in Arctic Wolf, there is a section for “Wolves in Human Form.” Both Bowhead Whale and Walrus have sections on “Traditional Uses.” Although there is a different illustrator for each volume, the styles are similar and the content of the images are parallel throughout the three books. For example, page 6 of each book shows a naturally coloured skeleton on a black background, while page 12 is about Babies, and each book shows a mother and baby image. The illustrations are excellent throughout and extend to the end pages.  This series would be good research material for elementary school children studying the North. These books are highly recommended for public libraries and elementary school libraries.  Highly recommended:  4 out of 4 stars Reviewer:  Sandy Campbell Sandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines. Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give. 


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell

Christopher, Neil.  On the Shoulder of a Giant:  an Inuit Folktale. Iqualuit:  Inhabit Media, 2015. Print.This is another in a series of works designed by Neil Christopher, one of the founders of Inhabit Media, to preserve traditional Inuit stories.  In this book he retells a story, which is known in various forms all across the Arctic, of a giant who adopts a hunter as his son.  This giant, named Inukpak,  is one of the inukpasugjuit or “great giants” of Inuit stories.  Inukpak is so big that he can walk across the Arctic in “just a few days” and when he stands in the sea the water "never come[s] up past his knees". He is so big that he thinks that the hunter is a lost child, so he adopts him and carries him on his shoulder.This is a simple retelling, designed to teach about the mythical giants and to explain why the story is found in many cultures across the Canadian Arctic.  However, it also models a big person/small person relationship in which small people do not correct or talk back to big people.  Children will relate to the hunter, who is treated as a child and because the story is told from the hunter's perspective.  The giant sometimes doesn't recognize the impact of his own actions.  For example when he runs back to shore, he creates waves that swamp the hunter, but the giant thinks the hunter has been playing in the water.  "The hunter wanted to tell the giant that he had not been playing in the water.  He also wanted to explain to Inukpak that he had caught a bowhead whale, not a sculpin.  But, once again, the little hunter did not want to argue with a giant, so he just said, 'Okay.' "This is mainly a picture book. The illustrations run over two-page spreads with text over-printed on them.  Jim Nelson does a good job of presenting the difference in size between the giant and the human.  Inukpak is presented as a happy fellow, with black shaggy hair and a full beard.  Children will be amused by the giant picking up a polar bear by the scruff of its neck, like a kitten. The images are realistic and the backgrounds are lovely representations of Arctic landscapes. Overall, this is an enjoyable and high-quality work that should be included in elementary school libraries, public libraries and libraries specializing in Arctic children’s books.Highly Recommended:  4 out of 4 starsReviewer:  Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give. 


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell

Qitsualik-Tinsley, Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley.  Skraelings. Illus. Andrew Trabbold. Iqaluit, NU:  Inhabit Media, 2014. Print.This volume is the first in the Arctic Moon Magick series.  In it writing duo, Rachael and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, have recreated an Inuit world at the time of Viking contact, presented through the eyes of a young Inuit hunter, Kannujaq.  In his travels, he comes across people of the Tuniit culture, of whom he has only heard legends.  He meets Siku, a boy-shaman, whose name means “ice” and is named for his blue eyes.  The Tuniit have been attacked in the past by Vikings from Greenland.  They return each spring and Kannujaq finds himself in the middle of a battle, where he becomes a reluctant warrior. The title Skraelings, which means “Weaklings”, is a Viking taunt to the Tuniit.This is a well written chapter book for ages 12 and older and the language is age-appropriate. There are a few black and white drawings that complement the text.   While much of the story proceeds logically along the plot line,  occasionally, the authors break in, not as narrators, but simply to give the reader additional information.  For example:  "Oh, we forgot to tell you:  Shamans were pretty clever when it came to the things that plants and other natural materials could do" (p. 26). While this is unusual in a novel and breaks the flow of the story, it is completely in keeping with oral storytelling and is rather endearing.  However, this book should not be mistaken for simple story.  It is an engaging read, culminating in a final plot twist that demonstrates the authors’ broad and compassionate understanding of the regional history of the Eastern Arctic. This is an excellent work and unique in young adult Arctic literature.  It should definitely be included in junior high and middle school libraries and public libraries everywhere.Recommendation:  4 stars out of 4Reviewer:  Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give. 


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell

Feagan, Robert. Arctic Thunder: A Novel. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2010. Print. St. Albert is a small city, just north of Edmonton in Central Alberta.  In the opening pages of this book, thirteen-year-old Mike Watson and his team, the St. Albert Rams, win the Alberta Bantam Provincial box lacrosse championship.  Then his father, an RCMP officer, announces that they’ve been posted to Inuvik, which Mike describes as a place “somewhere inside the Arctic Circle and makes winter in St. Albert seem like summer”. The author, Robert Feagan, who lives in St. Albert, but spent much of his youth in RCMP posts across the Canadian Western Arctic, does a good job of presenting the struggles of a thirteen year old boy from the South trying to fit into the largely Inuit and Dene community in Inuvik. The story is definitely told from the point of view of a “white kid from the South”, except that Mike is part Zulu, so he sort of looks like he might fit in. Mike finds that teenagers are teenagers everywhere and when he goes to school he meets: the bully, the nerd whom everyone avoids and the super athletes, who in this case compete in the Arctic Games.  There is even a beautiful female nemesis, Gwen, who is one of the best basketball players Mike has every encountered. While well written and engaging, Feagan sometimes becomes a little didactic in educating the reader about the North.  Characters occasionally launch into unnaturally detailed explanations about things northern. Much of the tension between characters is also resolved too neatly.  Most of the core characters acquire self-understanding, turn over new leaves, and apologize to each other within a very few pages.  Much more realistic is the portrayal of the typical teenager, Mike, whispering a “Thank-you” to his Mom, long after she’s out of earshot. Through the course of the book, Mike (and the reader) come to appreciate what Inuvik, with its single traffic light and one retail store, has to offer.  Feagan works in a sensitive treatment of the role of the elders in the community and the healthy effects of living close to the land.  Of course, lacrosse, which no one plays in Inuvik, is an important thread through the story. Adult readers should not be put off by the fact that this is a young adult novel; it is a good Arctic read for anyone. Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Sandy Campbell Sandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give. 


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell

Van der Wiel, Renée.  The Swazi People.  Gallo Manor, South Africa: Awareness Publishing Group, 2012. Print.South Africa describes itself as “one rainbow nation going forward”, but within that rainbow there are eleven indigenous South African peoples.  The Swazi People is one of eleven volumes in the African Cultures of South Africa series, which presents the cultures for readers at the upper elementary level.  The other volumes include the cultures of The Khoikhoi, The Ndebele, The North Sotho, The San, The South Sotho, The Tsonga-Shangaan, The Tswana, The Venda, The Xhosa, and The Zulu.In The Swazi People, Renée Van der Wiel describes their arts and crafts, beliefs, clothes, history, houses, language, leaders, marriage, music and dance, recipes, and way of life.  The book incorporates many Swazi words, which are listed in the glossary at the back of the book.  For example, mahiya (cotton cloth), gogo (grandmother) and lobola (marriage gift, usually cattle) are all listed in the glossary.This volume is attractively produced and brightly coloured.  It opens with a full-page map of South Africa that shows the historical movements of the Swazi people and highlights their homelands.  Text and images are presented on alternate pages.  The professional quality images are usually full-page and are either historical black and white photos or modern colour photos of Swazi people engaged in traditional activities.  There is also an index, which improves the book's usefulness as an elementary research text.The text is written in age-appropriate language and deals with the subjects in sufficient detail that as an adult, I was able to learn from it.  In general, the tone is objective and non-judgemental.  For example, "[i]n 1973, King Sobhuzall and the Imbokoduo National Movement stopped all other political parties from taking part in elections in Swaziland. (…) After only five years of being a democracy, Swaziland became a country ruled by a king."  Where there is bias present, it is more in the form of presenting the Swazi point of view: "But the Boers did not care about looking after the Swazi people – all they wanted was to get through to the sea without having to travel through British territory.".This sturdily bound volume is an excellent work and is highly recommended for public and elementary school libraries.  Highly recommended:  4 stars out of 4Reviewer:  Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give. 


2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell

Hainnu, Rebecca and Anna Ziegler.  A Walk on the Tundra. Iqaluit:  Inhabit Media, 2011.  Print. This volume is a cross between a picture book, a story and a field guide to edible plants.  Inuujaq is a little girl who wants to play with her friends, but they are still asleep.  Her grandmother, Silaaq, takes her out on the land to collect plants.  While Inuujaq is more concerned about her friends and snacks, her grandmother patiently passes on the traditional knowledge that her grandmother had taught her.  As Silaaq teaches the reader learns about the plants as well.  For example, when they pick qijuktaat, we are told that “Its long green fingers and white bell blossoms flutter in the wind.  Inuujaq touches the little branches.  They feel prickly on her palms.  And they smell fresh, like the summer wind when it comes from the hills.” Authors, Rebecca Hainnu and Anna Ziegler, have worked on several educational publications. That background is apparent in this book.  There are eighteen Inuktitut words, including 6 plant names, introduced in the text.  They are explained and italicized when they are first introduced, for example “Nirilikkit – eat them”. The next time the word is used, it is assumed that the reader knows what it means. Because there are several Inuktitut words on each page, I was not able to remember them as I read and had to use the glossary or look back to the first use of the word, which is distracting.  However, as a tool for building vocabulary, or as a story book for students who have some familiarity with Inuktitut, this work would be excellent. The pictures that accompany the story are cartoon-like with lots of bright colours.  Artist, Qin Leng, has given the land a lot of colour.  The ground is covered with green grass and bright flowers, reflecting the Arctic summer.  Silaaq and Inuujaq wear pinks and purples and blues with green boots and pink shoes.  The plant glossary, or field guide, is illustrated with photographs for accurate identification. There are very few children’s books about Inuit plant use.  The content is valuable, but because of the incorporation of Inuktitut words, it is more challenging to read.   A Walk on the Tundra will find most of its readers at the upper elementary level rather than the age 6 to 8 group which is its defined audience.  Recommended for elementary school and public libraries. Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer:  Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell

Deal, Laura.  In the Sky at Nighttime. Iqaluit, NU: Inhabit Media, 2019. This illustrated poem shows what a polar village looks like at night and what is in the night sky. In the Arctic, winter nights are long, and it is dark as people go about their daily lives, so many people are familiar with the night sky. Tamara Campeau’s illustrations, each of which fill two facing pages, are in deep blue and purple hues, with the sky prominent in them. The text is overprinted on the artwork. Campeau’s rendering of the village has accurate details. Some of the houses have heating oil tanks outside. Paths to the doors have snow heaped alongside them. Power lines, attached to wooden power poles with insulators and transformers, loop through the village. The yellow light from electric lighting shines out through the windows of the houses. At the beginning of the book Laura Deal describes observable things in the sky: stars, falling snow, northern lights, ravens. Towards the end she becomes more figurative, introducing a mother’s song and dreams swirling in the sky. The text is a six verse poem, each verse beginning with the phrase “In the sky at night time.” The structure of the poem is reminiscent of Stephen Eaton Hume’s 1992 picture book, Midnight on the Farm, which also uses six verses, each beginning with a repeating phrase, to describe a nighttime world, however the two landscapes are distinct. Because this is an illustrated poem in the form of a picture book, rather than a picture book with text, some of the words are more difficult than one would expect in books for young children. For example, the dreams are “magical and extraordinary.” As a result, this text, simple as it is, will need some explanation. In the Sky at Nighttime is highly recommended for public libraries and elementary school libraries. Highly recommended:  4 out of 4 starsReviewer:  Sandy Campbell Sandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines. Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.               


2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell

Qaunaq, Sakiasi.  The Orphan and the Polar Bear.  Iqaluit:  Inhabit Media, Inc., 2011. Print.One of the common themes in Inuit stories is that of the orphan child alone on the land.  In this version, told by Arctic Bay elder Sakiasi Qalinaq, who learned his stories from his grandmother, the orphan is abandoned by hunters from his village and adopted by a village of polar bears.  The bears teach him to hunt and survive on the land and, when he is grown, return him to his people.  The image on the cover of the book showing the child riding the polar bear is an iconic one. This mythological relationship between child and polar bear is also found in non-Inuit literature, most notably in Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass. In the bears’ village the orphan is trained to hunt and survive on the land.  The bears also teach him their traditional wisdom.   For example, when one of the bears wants to go “push down” some humans because they “look so silly standing on their skinny legs”, a wiser elder bear says, “Never talk that way…don’t make humans our enemy.  Stay clear of them and their camps.” The book is primarily a picture-book. Unlike many of the other books of Inuit legends published by Inhabit Media, the pictures are not scary.  Rather they are quite beautiful.   The extra width of the landscape format gives artist, Eva Widermann, the opportunity to spread her illustrations across two pages reflecting the wide expanses of the Arctic.  Text usually takes up one corner or a few lines of a page.  Widermann’s images are realistic.  However, because this story is from a time when animals could shape-shift into human form, she sometimes gives the bears human postures and gestures.  For example, in the image on page 15, the polar bear is standing with a harpoon grasped in its front paws, handing it to the orphan.  Bears are also shown in their human form in three images. In the image on page 20, depicting the inside of an igloo in the bears’ village, a woman with human form is tending the fire.Overall this is a lovely rendition of the story.  While designed for an elementary school audience, anyone with an interest in traditional Arctic tales will enjoy it.  Recommended for elementary schools and public libraries. Recommendation:  4 out of 4 starsReviewer:  Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.


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