Canada: We Are the Story

Gr 3-6–A classroom where children are receiving a homework assignment and a festive crowd of students and adults at an Indigo gathering frame this layered lesson introducing the Native American spirit world. A child working at home on the assigned question, “What makes you proud to be a Canadian?” receives a new question from an unseen speaker. “In your quietest moments can you feel the weight of a gentle wrinkled hand on your shoulder or on your brow?” Instructions to listen to the voices of “your ancestors in the next world” will recur in following pages explaining that “Energy flows outward and onward in a great eternal circle that includes every soul that’s stepped foot on this land.” Wagamese’s poem “Canada,” published in 2011 in the collection “Runaway Dreams,” is adapted here by a writer identified only in the brief copyright notes. Wagamese and Pawis-Steckley are both well established Ojibway book creators; here three varied styles illustrate the scenes in three varied styles. The contemporary children and adults appear in cartoon-style art. A few views on colored spreads are crammed with masses of pencil drawn faces of Old Ones and a more elaborate statue-like, undesignated figure. The swirling travels of human spirit through the universe occur in handsome abstract vistas. “They speak to us in the hard bite of an Arctic wind across Belle Isle, in the rush of Nahanni waters.” Much of this will be elusive to young readers. The unseen hand on one’s shoulder and the masses of elders will need discussion. But three concluding ideas around that festival may serve parents and teachers as conversation starters in sharing the book with children: pride in one’s country, belonging here, and creating a great life story.