Each of the four stories in Arctic Adventures – Tales from the Lives of Inuit Artists, retold by Raquel Rivera and illustrated by Jirina Marton (Groundwood Books/ House of Anansi Press, 2007), makes a perfect bedtime story – but be ready to count in some extra time to look at the short biography of the artist protagonist in each one, along with an example of the art. This corelation between each story and an artist makes this a very special book. Older Brother read it on his own for the PaperTigers Reading Challenge in 2008 and you can read his reaction to it here.

All the stories describe events in the artists’ lives before their move away from the traditional Inuit way of life, through circumstances that are explained in each case. In “Pudlo and Kapik Go Hunting”, a hunting trip nearly ends in disaster when artist Pudlo Pudlat’s nephew Kapiq is stranded on an ice floe; “Kenojuak and the Goddess of the Sea”, describes Kenojuak Ashevak’s childhood encounter with Talelayu, Goddess of the Sea; in “Oonark’s Arctic Adventure” we join Jessie Oonark on her perilous journey “in off the land” in the Back River Area to Baker Lane; and Lazarusie Ishulutak shared his experiences with the author of two very different encounters with polar bears, for “Lazarusie and the Polar Bears”. Through the narrative young readers/listeners (and indeed adult readers) will absorb many details of Inuit culture – and there’s a map and a good glossary at the end too, as well as suggested further reading and an author’s note giving details of her sources for each story.

Marton’s atmospheric and expressive pastel illustrations transport readers to the Frozen North and provide a coherence between the stories – and the photograph of the artist that follows each story in a double-page spread, along with biographical details and discussion of their artwork, adds a very special dimension to the book that will intrigue young listeners/readers. And this is where sharing the book comes into its own, as the realisation that these stories happened to real, identifable people is something young people will want to talk through. And, of course, there are some interesting anecdotes too – like the following:

“When Pudlo was a child, he liked to draw on the walls of his family’s iglus, especially on the ice windows. But mothers discourage their children from doing this.

“Don’t carve up the wall, ” Pudlo’s mother would tell him.

Pudlo didn’t begin drawing on paper until the 1960s, when he was in his mid forties.”

So next time your small person gets creative on your walls…

And in the meantime, do seek out this beautiful book.

Well, we did it, though time nearly ran away with us at the end. We’ve had so many extra things going on this month that apart from anything else, I wasn’t quite organised enough to go out and track down books we didn’t already have somewhere around the house… Older Brother had already set his sights a while ago on Arctic Adventures: Tales from the Lives of Inuit Artists by Raquel Rivera and illustrated by Jirina Martin (Groundwood, 2007); but we realised that our choice of books for the geographical area encompassing Southeast Asia on our PaperTigers map was somewhat limited. In the end, we revisited Asian Children’s Favorite Stories, retold by David Conger, Kay Lyons, Liana Romolo, Joan Suyenaga and Marian Davies Toth, and illustrated by Patrick Yee (Tuttle, 2006): Little Brother read the two stories from Thailand; and I read one from the Philippines and one from Indonesia as our official readaloud… of course, we did go on and read some of the others too – but it did serve as a reminder of the enjoyment you can get from just dipping into an anthology, rather than wading through the whole thing in one fell swoop, which is what I often tend to get carried away and do…

The two stories we read together, “The Mousedeer Becomes a Judge” and “The Golden Ring” both provoked quite a lot of discussion – the first because it had a strong moral which dealt efficiently with the nasty crocodile after he had tried to take a bite out of Buffalo, who had just saved his life; and the second because it is a folktale that explains why hawks and hens do not get on, and why hens scratch the ground, which we all enjoyed, even if we knew it wasn’t true. You can read a fuller review of the book here.

Of the two he read, Little Brother says:

I liked reading these folktales. The Fake Gem was about a person from Thailand called Phra who had a fake gem of glass and he was tempted to sell it to the Chinese Emperor Lao. Then Phra walked out and saw the bad thing he had almost done and in the end it turned out Lao wasn’t really a Chinese emperor anyway. “The Lucky Farmer Becomes King” was really cool because Lek was only a farmer but he managed to scare off invaders of Thailand but he didn’t have to fight them. Everyone thought he was brave but actually he was a scaredy-cat, except for when he fought a snake. The pictures are really funny, especially the snake one and the crocodile one where he’s cowering at the back of the boat.

Arctic Adventures: Tales from the Lives of Inuit Artists is a stunning book and, as Older Brother himself noticed, it is remarkable because the stories are all true and were not the experiences of adventurers but people who grew up to become artists. I’m not sure how much he took in this time round of the actual biographies of the four artists featured but I think it is the kind of book that will be read many times, and which will grow with its readers. Jirina Martin’s palette reflects the far northern setting with its glacial blues and greens and varied shades of grey and brown, and her style complements the examples provided of the actual artists’ work. I think this is a great book for boys who are themselves creative but also love adventure: it just proves you can be both. Here’s what Older Brother wrote:

My favourite story was about a boy and a girl who went out hunting and made a tent on some ice. Then in the morning there was a cracking noise and the tent and the children and all their dogs had broken away and they were stuck on an ice floe. In the end, they managed to get home but it was quite scary for me to think that this was a true story. In fact, all the stories are adventure stories and they’re all true. And I thought when I was reading it that it was amazing to think that all the stories were from artists because I want to be an artist when I grow up.

And so we come to the end of our Reading Challenge for this year. We’ve all really enjoyed it and if I had reservations at the beginning that I might have to cajole my two into keeping going, I needn’t have worried as, after each mini review, I was nagged into helping them find their next choice; and they have been quite thrilled at the possibility of their reviews spreading their wings and being read from anywhere around the world…

So if you took part, do let us know how you got on; and we look forward to you maybe joining us next year, when our challenge too will spread its wings and be even more global…