Series of books about today's kids

Page 9

Little Voice

Ruby Slipperjack

Coteau Books, $9.95

www.coteaubooks.com

Born on her father's trapline at Whitewater Lake, Ojibway writer and educator Ruby Slipperjack grew up surrounded by traditional stories and crafts.

Her office in the department of Indigenous Learning at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay has a wonderful display of the crafts she teaches her students.

Slipperjack's talents don't end there. She has three novels to her credit: Weesquachak and the Lost Ones, Silent Words, and Honour the Sun. An accomplished artist, her paintings grace the jackets of these books.

With these credentials, Slipperjack was a natural to be chosen as a contributing author to Coteau Books new children's series, "In The Same Boat."

She says the key to writing books for children is to remember how they think. Not everything needs an explanation. It's just there.

The result of Slipperjack's latest writing endeavor is Little Voice, the coming-of-age story of Ray, a girl who learns to combine two kinds of learning-what she learns in school and what she learns during summer vacations with her beloved grandmother.

The author, from the Fort Hope Indian Band in Ontario, said she thinks in her first language. Perhaps this is why the story rings so true.

Little Voice is set in two locations. We are initially introduced to a small logging community along the railway line of Northern Ontario. Slipperjack chose this setting to honor these dying, forgotten communities, she said. The second setting is in the bush where Ray takes in the traditional way her grandmother lives. Ray is miserable in town and wants to live with her grandmother who can live off the land and heal people using the natural things around her.

Leaving town isn't possible for Ray because her mother and siblings need everyone's portion of the money on the welfare cheque.

Ray's mother is Aboriginal but her father, who died in an industrial accident, was not. The family struggles to exist on the edge of the community.

Ray's green eyes, her masculine name, and her poor clothing make her an object of ridicule at school. She copes with her unhappiness by seldom talking. Her grandmother calls her "Naens," meaning little voice, and says to her, "Naens, you must now come forward with your voice or someone else will take it away from you who is not supposed to have it!"

Ray grows in self-confidence and finds her voice. Skills she learns in the bush spill over into what she needs to know to survive anywhere.

There is interest, suspense, and much humor in Little Voice. Ray is quite a likable character and, though her problems seem very personal, they are universal. It's difficult to grow up and learn what you need to know to get through life. Any young person will identify with this.

The "In the Same Boat" series of stories are about today's children and the situations they find themselves in. Children of different backgrounds are able to recognize themselves and any reader is sure to get some insight into other cultures.