Iqaluit-produced children’s book up for Ontario library award

Ava follows the “little people” on a hunting expedition in this illustration from Ava and the Little Folk. The children’s book was recently nominated for a Silver Birch Express Award from the Ontario Library Association. (COURTESY OF INHABIT MEDIA)

Ava takes advice from one of the “little people” in this illustration from Ava and the Little Folk. The children’s book was recently nominated for a Silver Birch Express Award from the Ontario Library Association. (COURTESY OF INHABIT MEDIA)

The “little people” hunt a big lemming in this illustration by Jonathan Wright from Ava and the Little Folk. The children’s story book was recently nominated for an award from the Ontario Library Association. (COURTESY OF INHABIT MEDIA)

A children’s book produced in Iqaluit for Nunavut youth is up for an award from the Ontario Library Association.

Written by Neil Christopher and Alan Neal, and illustrated by Apex-based artist Jonathan Wright, Ava and the Little Folk was nominated for a Silver Birch Express Award, which goes to books geared for readers aged eight to 10 years.

Until May 2014, more than 2,500 Ontario school kids of that age will read through the book and nine similar works from throughout Canada and choose a winner.

“There’s not been a lot of opportunities for northern writers to become a part of Canadian literature,” said Christopher, who is also a co-owner and managing partner of the book’s Iqaluit-based publisher, Inhabit Media.

“I think what this shows is that northern voices are indeed now considered as being part of Canadian literature, and that larger Canadian voice.”

The award nomination is the publishing company’s third from the Ontario Library Association in as many years, Christopher said, and the most recent of a growing list of nominations for other books and films they have produced out of Iqaluit.

Ava and the Little Folk tells the story of an Inuk boy who is adopted by supernatural “little folk,” elf-like beings recalled from Inuit legends, who teach him how to hunt.

Like other books the publisher produces, the richly-illustrated children’s tale was written with Nunavummiut in mind, Christopher said.

“There’s imagery that northern children would be able to understand easier than southern children,” he said.

“In any of the writing projects I’ve been involved with, I wanted northern children to be able to see themselves as potential characters instead of always reading about other people from other places.”

That said, the book also serves as an “entry point” for youth elsewhere in the country to learn about Nunavut and the stories of its people.

“It kind of hints at some of the lore, some of the traditional stories and some of the uniqueness of the North,” the author-publisher said. “So I think it could spark and interest in Northern stories.”

Not unlike other works of fiction that tell fantastic tales for what he calls “the Harry Potter generation” of readers across the country, Ava and the Little Folk offers a “glimpse at the fantastic in the Arctic,” Christopher said.

The story’s key characters are the “little people,” elf-like magical inhabitants who can shift in size, drawn from Inuit lore across the Arctic.

“Each region has their own versions of different stories and different details about the little people,” said Christopher, who has researched such traditional stories “for the better part of 15 years” for use in much of the work he has published.

Jonathan Wright’s illustrations bring the story to life.

“The clothing, and mannerisms maybe, of storytelling – all of that stuff is influenced by the North,” Wright said.

More broadly, the book could help those unfamiliar with the Arctic gain “an insight into us northern artists, writers, and just everybody living here,” he said.

Inhabit Media has also published Inuktitut and French-language editions of the book.

Ava and the Little Folk is available on order from the publishing company and most online booksellers.

Copies are also sold at Arctic Ventures in Iqaluit.