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Yuit Yvette Edmonds | Tuk and the Whale Raquel Riviera | Sila and the LandLindsay Dupre, Shelby Angalik and Ariana Roundpoint Illustrated by Halie Finney |
Yuit
Tuk and the Whale
Sila and the Land
Lindsay Dupre, Shelby Angalik and Ariana Roundpoint
Illustrated by Halie Finney
Yuit
Yuit is a great book for junior readers to explore Inuit life, culture, and creation myth. Vivid depictions of living on the frozen landscape take readers to a new and exciting environment that they may have thought uninhabitable. Through Liat, the story explores the beliefs of Inuit people and how Inuit societies lived and thrived. The description of making igloos and cooking seal meat offers a glimpse into a culture that readers may know very little about.
This book is a wonderful complement to grades 4-6 language curriculum as it exposes learners to diversity. It also makes connections to the social studies curriculum as it examines the changing way of life that resulted when settlers arrived. Using critical thinking, students should discuss the Inuit relationship to the land and how interconnected their own identity is to their surrounding environment.
Writing the next chapter to this story would be a fantastic way for learners to continue their adventure with Liak and Yuit. Students could brainstorm their ideas in small groups and then write about what they think Liak and Yuit's new lives might be. Students could then share their ideas about how they think the book ends.
Tuk and the Whale
Tuk and the Whale imagines a whale hunt between European fishers and Inuit on the eastern coast of Baffin Island in the early 1600s. The story shows the tension and cooperation that a survival situation forced upon two very different groups.
Tuk and the Whale is an excellent read for grade five as it the Inuit way of life from an insider perspective. It imaginatively narrates how a young Inuit boy might see contact and the gifts from European fishers like a knife and different hunting practices. This book also ties into Ontario’s Social Studies Curriculum (2018) grade five, strand A: Interactions of Indigenous Peoples and Europeans prior to 1713, in What Would Eventually Become Canada and it ties into all the Big Ideas in its sub-strands. It ties into the Interrelationships concept as it shows the tension that contact had and the fears, rightly so, of how that contact might impact Inuit communities. Finally, Tuk and the Whale works with the Ontario First Nation, Metis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework by promoting Inuit culture and traditional knowledge in the classroom.
A fun activity for students is to recreate the whale hunt from both the European and Inuit perspectives as a short play. Students would have to interpret these views from what is known in the story and use historical sources to creatively imagine what plausibly could be felt or thought by the hunters.
Sila and the Land
As the third book in the anthology, this book helps engage oral communication about positive environmental stewardship, making inferences on how we can protect our natural surroundings. It also includes and adds value to different voices and perspectives within the Canadian narrative. By promoting different narratives, students can critically analyze a multitude of perspectives through literature. As a graphic novel, students are also able to interpret the images and how it relates to their relationship to the environment.
A fun classroom activity would have students making a book advertisement. In groups of two, students could create a short advertisement for the book, perhaps tying it to earth day. They should include why they liked it, why the book is essential for their friends and families to read, and maybe some recommendations on how to be a steward for the environment. Students could choose between a few different mediums (video, poster) and present their advertisement in class.
