Africville is placed in the national spotlight with new children’s book
Shauntay Grant’s latest, lauded children’s book was written pretty much where it’s set.
Africville, by the Halifax author and British Columbia illustrator Eva Campbell, is nominated in the Young People’s Literature — Illustrated Books category of the Governor General’s Literary Awards.
Intended for readers from four to seven, Africville is about a young girl who visits the site of the former community in Halifax and imagines what it was like before city officials forced out residents in the name of progress. She visits the present-day park and the sundial where her great-grandmother’s name is carved, and celebrates during the annual Africville reunion and festival held every summer.
“The piece itself, the text, is a poem that I wrote here,” Grant said during an interview at the replica of Africville’s Seaview United Baptist Church, the home of the Africville Museum.
“Not in the church but at Africville, on the grounds. Which has become a big part of my practice — writing about a place, actually going to the place and writing on the physical land and space where the story is set.”
Africville, published by Groundwood Books, is one of the 70 Can- adian books announced by the Canada Council for the Arts as finalists for the awards. The 14 winners will be announced Oct. 30. The awards will be presented in Ottawa on Nov. 28, and public readings will take place there Nov. 28 and 29. Each winner receives $25,000. The publisher of each winning book receives $3,000 to support promotional activities. Non-winning finalists each receive $1,000.
Grant, who teaches creative writing at Dalhousie University and was Halifax’s third poet laureate, said crafting her book for a young audience filled a gap in the available writing about Africville.
“Most of the literature that’s out there on Africville is for adults, an older readership. And a lot of it focuses on what happened to the community in the ’60s, which is a significant part of the community’s history but certainly not the whole history.
“It was a self-sustaining community for many years before all of these unwanted services started coming into the community.”
The core of the book was eventually revealed through attending the annual gatherings at the harbourside site.
“For me, this sense of home was the theme that just kept coming back. I think that’s largely from being witness to the reunions,” said Grant.
“People were scattered and re- located, yet there’s still a very, very strong sense of home and a desire to come together and be family. … If children can open up that book and walk away knowing something of Africville and getting that feeling of home from the pages, that means a lot to me.”
Though her background doesn’t extend to having roots of her own in Africville, Grant said she has benefited from wider connections.
“I come here, I guess, in solidarity and as someone who’s been coming here from when I was a child. One thing about Nova Scotia, the historic black communities of the province, there’s such a close network of people.”