Donation gives children’s book project a boost
Thousands of copies of a children’s book written in Cree, Dene, Michif and English will be distributed to families with toddlers in Northern Saskatchewan.
Are You Hungry? was written by Calyn Stange, a La Ronge dietitian who grew up in the community and works with the Saskatchewan Health Authority. The books will be provided to families of all 18-month-old children who are immunized on or off-reserve.
A $20,000 donation from James Irvine and Trudy Connor was “huge,” Stange said.
“It helped us to move a lot faster in the development and in being able to provide these books to the children a lot sooner.”
Irvine has served as chair for the Northern Healthy Communities Partnership. Years ago, the NHCP started the babies, books and bonding committee, which is similar to other programs in Canada and the U.S., he said.
“At the time, I was really seeing that there’s quite a number of Northern homes that literature or books were not common, especially for kids.”
About a decade ago, the committee started a program to distribute books to families with children ages six months, 12 months, 18 months and four years old. Parents often asked about Indigenous books, and the program looked for ageappropriate material. The committee found books aimed at older kids, but could not find any for younger children in Cree, Dene or Michif.
“We felt that important enough that we wanted to make a contribution to the North where we’ve worked for almost 40 years,” Irvine said, adding that parents have been enthusiastic about introducing their children to Cree, Dene and Michif.
Stange, a committee member, said the book’s development began several years ago. She did a call-out for an illustrator, and the committee hired a high school student from Black Lake, Crystal Seegerts. Two translators did the translation to Cree, Dene and Michif.
The story follows members of a family gathering, hunting and preparing Northern foods, starting with the grandmother baking bannock. The family comes together at the end of the story to share dinner. The committee ordered 1,000 copies each of the Cree/English, Dene/ English and Michif/English books.
“It’s all about promoting the use and then again the preservation of the Northern languages, and sharing those traditions, those cultural traditions around food,” Stange said, adding the story was inspired in part by her work as a dietitian, thinking about her family, traditional foods and teaching children about how they end up at the table.
“I think it was important to show all of us coming together as a family to prepare that and then enjoy the meal together at the end of the book.”