Nanabosho and the Butterflies :)

        Went to the book launch and reading of "Nanabosho and the Butterflies" written by Joe McLellan and Matrine McLellan. Only Joe was there though. Oh, and with me was my CreComm partner in crime...Kalaya! :) It was held in the sunlit Atrium of the McNally Robinson Bookstore in Grant Park Mall. (Boy that mall is far! and did I miss McNally's!) There were probably about 20 seats set up, and we, the audience filled up about 2/3rds of that.

        Nanabosho and the Butterflies is one of eleven children's books centred on the character, Nanabosho (all authored by McLellan.) Nanabosho is the "teacher and protector of the Anishinabe people" as described in McLellan's website. The Anishinabe  is the third largest Indian tribe in North America.

        Before reading the book, Joe started off by giving us a little bit of a background about his Nanabosho book series. He said that he started writing books about the tribe 25 years ago, when most of the ladies in the audience weren't born yet. (hehe) His main purpose of writing the books is to hopefully help the new generations of the Anishinabe tribe to learn their native language.

        "Well it's not the same when you tell this story in english, but that's what our children speak now," Joe said, relating to us what an elder of the tribe told him. "But maybe if you tell the stories, they'll be interested in finding more stories, they'll be interested in the language."

        The children's book is a heartfelt story about a young Nanabosho helping a mother teach her children the important lesson of being independent. The book is illustrated with rich coloured paintings by a former student of his, Jackie Travis. He also incorporated a lot of native words into the story by substituting the english words for grandmother, butterflies, and thank you, etc. I hope and believe that his books will help those new Anishinabe generations learn more about their language and culture.

        In the Philippines, I know that some dialects are also dying. So I know how important it is to keep language alive. When I moved here to Canada, I found some parents struggling to teach their children the Filipino language. So far most Filipinos I know that were raised here, do understand the language, but only a few can speak it. Language becomes part of the identity of a people, and so when this is lost, a part of the people's culture is also lost.