Way Back Then - Hardcover

Christopher, Neil

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1772270210 ISBN 13: 9781772270211

Publisher: Inhabit Media, 2015

Synopsis

“A bilingual sampler―cold of setting but warm of spirit.” ― ★ Kirkus

Kudlu's children will not go to sleep until he tells them a story of long ago. Before they will shut their eyes, they want to hear about a time long before Kudlu was born, a time when the world was magic. Before they can sleep, they want to hear about giants, animals disguised as humans, little people the size of lemmings, and all of the other wonderful things that existed way back then.

About this title

About the Authors

Neil Christopher is an educator, author, and filmmaker. He first moved to the North in 1997 to help start a high school program in Resolute Bay, Nunavut. It was those students who first introduced Neil to the mythical inhabitants from traditional Inuit stories. The time spent in Resolute Bay changed the course of Neil’s life. Since that first experience in the Arctic, Nunavut has been the only place he has been able to call home. Neil has worked with many community members to record and preserve traditional Inuit stories. Together with his colleague, Louise Flaherty, and his brother, Danny Christopher, Neil started a small publishing company in Nunavut called Inhabit Media Inc. The company has since been working to promote Northern stories and authors.

Germaine Arnattaujuq is an award-winning Inuit artist and illustrator, best known for her prints and etchings depicting Inuit myths and traditional ways of life. In 1999, she designed the special edition two-dollar coin commemorating the founding of the territory of Nunavut. She is the co-author, with Gyu Oh, of My Name Is Arnaktauyok: The Life and Art of Germaine Arnaktauyok, and she has illustrated numerous books. Germaine is the recipient of the 2021 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. She lives in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.

Reviews

K-Gr 2—Way Back Then draws inspiration from Inuit oral tradition and is told with both English and Inuktitut words and syllabic characters. When Kudlu's children cannot fall asleep, he tells them short stories his mother used to tell him about how life came to be in the North. The wind is whistling outside the iglu, but inside, the family is cozy and safe as the dad tells his children tales about how a hole that was accidentally left open allowed for caribou to escape the underground, the time a quarreling fox and raven fought over the light, and the meaning behind their Inuit traditions and values. Each story is one page in length and appears beside a full-page illustration by Arnaktauyok, an Inuit artist. The characters are dressed in traditional clothing, and their belongings and surroundings resemble pointillism art. The 10 italicized words that appear in the story are defined in the glossary in the front of the book. VERDICT These traditional stories and their evocative images will likely grab the attention of older children, especially those from Canada.—Tanya Boudreau, Cold Lake Public Library, AB, Canada

Edition details

• Publisher: Inhabit Media
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1772270210
• ISBN 13: 9781772270211
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Arnattaujuq (Arnaktauyok) Germaine
• Number of pages: 40