Nicola Campbell's SHI-SHI-ETKO being adapted for film

Nicola Campbell's terrific picture book, Shi-shi-etko, will be available as a short film! It is currently in production. Details here: "Short film reflects Sto-lo culture."

Nicola Campbell's SHIN-CHI'S CANOE

Keep an eye out for Nicola Campbell's new book, Shin-chi's Canoe. Her first book, Shi-shi-etko, is astounding in so many ways, honestly, poignantly, telling the story of Shi-shi-etko in the days before she leaves her family and community for a residential school. Shin-chi is her little brother, and this story is set at the school. I've not seen it yet, but look forward to it with great anticipation.

There is a "supplier of library promotional materials and reading incentives" called Upstart that sponsors a contest called "Vote for Books" (thanks, Christine, for writing to tell me about this contest). It is loosely timed to follow the presidential election cycle, with the votes tallied on November 4th and winners announced November 5th.

As I understand it, this is how it works:

January 1 to April 31st: Visitors to the site nominated books in these categories: Picture Books, Chapter Books, Series for Young Readers, and Series for Older Readers.

May 1st: Most-nominated books were announced.

Sept 1: Voting begins on top eight finalists in each category.

Sept. 22: Round 2 begins with top 4 in each category.

Oct 13: Two top finalists will "face off" in the final round of voting.

Nov 4: Votes will be tallied

Nov 5: Winners will be announced

This "voteforbooks" campaign is relevant to American Indians in Children's Literature because two of the books in the current round (round 2) in the "Series for Older Readers" category are Meyer's Twilight and Wilder's Little House on the Prairie. Both books have Native characters, but as I and others have noted on this blog, both writers do a poor job at depicting Native culture.

But! Both are top sellers. Erroneous presentation of American Indians, apparently, doesn't matter.

Odd, too, that LHOP is in the same category as Twilight. LHOP for older readers?!

That category, Series for Older Readers, has two other books still in the running. They are Harry Potter and The Spiderwick Chronicles. I don't know how the sponsors decided what books to put up against each other in the brackets, but it does seem (to me) that it was arranged so that the "face off" would be between Harry Potter and Twilight. We'll see.

Carlson and McHalsie's I AM STO:LO! KATHERINE EXPLORES HER HERITAGE

[Note: This review may not be published elsewhere without written permission from its author, Beverly Slapin. Copyright 2008 by Beverly Slapin. All rights reserved.]

Carlson, Keith Thor, and Albert “Sonny” McHalsie (Stó:lo), I am Stó:lo! Katherine explores her heritage, photos by Gary Fiegehen, illustrations by Rachel Nicol-Smith. Stó:lo Heritage Trust, 1998, grades 5-up

As a school project about cultural heritage is planned, fourth-grader Katherine McHalsie is not happy when another student voices his thoughts about Native peoples based on a cowboy-and-Indian movie he saw on TV. So Katherine sets out to research her heritage.

In conversations and hands-on experiences with her large extended family and Stó:lo (Coast Salish) elders, Katherine learns about the importance of story, community, ceremony, history, and her ancestors. And she learns that everything—the trees, the fish, the land—is alive, everything has spirit, everything has volition, everything has purpose.

From learning history while watching her father transform a small piece of cedar into a carved sturgeon, to learning about keeping safe while listening to her brother relate a particularly scary story, to learning about traditional foods while helping her mother pick and clean stinging nettles, to learning about traditional fishing while helping her father mend a eulachon net, to learning about traditional basketry while helping an elder gather and split cedar roots, to learning about the responsibility that goes with being given a traditional name, to learning about the land and place-names while watching a gigantic whirlpool arise seemingly out of nowhere, Katherine learns about the Stó:lo people by living in the community, by listening to and working with her elders, and by, as her father tells her, “being Stó:lo.”

When she returns to school ready to present her report, Katherine is more confident about what she has learned and what she has yet to learn. She informs the class that she is not going to talk about “horses and buffalo,” but rather about “something that has special significance for me.” Unwrapping the carved sturgeon her father has made, she begins.

The engaging narrative is enhanced by lovely photos of Katharine and her extended family. Maps, archival photos, artwork, a glossary, and a key to the Stó:lo writing system all work together to complement the story and set it in time and place. In a lengthy preface well worth reading, Carlson relates the collaborative process by which I am Stó:lo! came to be; it’s an honest discussion by a non-Native author of how serious obstacles and ethical dilemmas were dealt with by the Stó:lo chiefs and elders who guided the project, and by the McHalsie family with whom he worked. Highly recommended.—Beverly Slapin

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Note from Debbie... I am Sto:lo! is available from Oyate. Using their online catalog you'll find it in the section labeled Grades four & up.