A Promise is A Promise

Robert Munsch & Michael Kusugak (auths)
Vladyana Krkorka (ill)
Annick Press 1998
Ages: 4-7 32 pages
ISBN 10: 155037009X
ISBN 13: 9781550370096

I am not even sure where to start, when it comes to A Promise is A Promise. Robert Munsch, Michael Kusugak, and Vladyana Krykorka. These are the thoroughbreds of the Annick stable.

A Promise is A Promise is the story of a defiant girl, Allashua, and her encounter with the mythical Quallapilluit. She is warned not to fish in the cracks in the sea ice, but ignores her parents advice. While alone, out on the sea ice, she is vulnerable to the Qualllapilluit who prey on children who are not with their parents. They pull her into the sea. In a desperate attempt to save herself, she promises to bring her brothers and sisters for the Quallapilluit. They throw her out of the sea and she is able to make it to her doorstep before losing consiousness. That is where her mother and father find her. After Allashua is revived, she owns up to what she has done. Her parents are disapointed with her, but they devise a clever plan to help their remorseful daughter. While the Quallapilluit are distracted, Allashua takes her brothers and sisters to the cracks in te sea ice. The evil beings are unaware that the children are there and thus miss their chance to claim their victims. After it is certain that the children are safe, Allashua shows much more caution, having learned her lesson.

There is no filler in this book. You can expect a nice hunk of meat. The imagery is something you can sink your chops into. Allashua taunts the Quallapilluit by saying that they "smell like a dead whale in the summertime", and their voices are described as sounding like "snow blowing over the ice". It will set your child's imagination on fire. And as if the descriptiveness of the story wasn't enough, the pages are filled with Krykorka's best work (ok, that's just my opinion, but I think it is a fair one). Her visual interpretation of the Quallapilluit would make you believe the creatures real, as if she painted them while they posed for her in her studio.

Kusugak and Munsch have written a book with a rich plot that appeals to the human experience of both the parent and the child. And have done so, wrapped up in an ancient piece of lore (that takes a bit of work). Allashua's defiant rational is spelled out for us, in the beginning in a way that children can relate to, and parents will become npstalgic over. When she finds herself in trouble, her parents do not rant and rave at her (like I would likely do, at least until page 28). They agree that her mistake was dumb, but as loving parents, they help her find a solution. We know, as caregivers that we would walk barefoot across the Arctic Circle for our children. It will tug at your heart strings. As for the munchkins (that's who the book is for right?), it is important for them to be reassured by a message of parents who will forgive anything and continue to love them. Clearly Allashua has made a whale of a mistake (one of those ones rotting in the summer), but the story is not didactic. We experience the remorse of Allashua, and the desperation of her parents. While a mythical story, the human element is raw and genuine.

As for my three inspirations, Koogiook (swan), Bunikpuk (big daughter), and Ukluk (bear), the real critics in this house, we've had the book for over a year and it comes off of the shelf more than once a week. I love reading it, their father loves reading it, their grandmother loves reading it, they love hearing it, and filling in the words they have now memorized (pretty much the whole book).

If you haven't read it, please, do. You will be well satisfied by the methods used to deceive the Quallapilluit. History, Anthropology, Mythology (and a whole lot more), wrapped in a thick fatty coating of delicious language. I rate it at the top of my all time favourite children's books.

Michael Arvaarluk Kusugak: Storyteller, Man's Man, Children's Author

It was late April, 1948, and the temperature was between -25C and -30C when Kusugak and his wife, Kukik, travelled by dog sled to Qatiktalik (Cape Fullerton), NWT (now Nunavut). It was there in a small sod hut, on a beach along the west coast of Hudson Bay, that Kukik bore a baby boy. Shortly after giving birth, the family continued on to Repulse Bay, which is located in the Arctic Circle. Times were hard. At one point, Kukik’s milk even dried up because Kusugak had not had a successful hunt in a long time. The baby cried, until a friend shared his stores with the family and Kukik’s milk returned.

Sound like a synopsis for a Michael Arvaarluk Kusugak book? Well, it isn’t. What it is is a recount of his beginnings in the world.

Michael Kusugak spent his first twelve years in Repulse Bay, a community that was home to a Hudson’s Bay Company fur-trading post (where people could trade pelts for supplies like bullets and flour), and that only ran the flag up the pole when an airplane was coming. The people of the community spent their winters in igloos and their summers in tents.

One day, when Michael was seven, an airplane came that would alter his life. The plane would carry off Michael, and the children of Repulse Bay, taking them from their nomadic life of hunting and fishing, to attend residential school. Michael attended school in Chesterfield Inlet, Rankin Inlet, Yellowknife, Churchill and Saskatoon, before becoming one of the first Inuit from the Eastern Arctic to graduate school.

Michael did not take to school, in the beginning. He spoke no English and claims to have cried the entire first year. After his first summer vacation, the resourceful child hid in the hills, until he saw the plane leave- successfully skipping school for an entire year.

Michael did prove to be a good student, though. He showed an ability to command the written word, early on. However, with home calling his heart, he dropped out after his first year of university and returned to Repulse Bay.

But fate had not forgotten Michael. It visited him in the form of Robert Munsch, who stayed with Michael, while touring the North. Michael took the famous author hunting and fishing and entertained him with the stories he had been told by elders, when he was a boy. Robert Munsch asked Michael to write some of these down and send them to him in Guelph.

The rest, as they say, was history. After several drafts, Annick Press finally agreed to publish A Promise is a Promise. It is then that Michael met another important person, Vladyana Krykorka, who would illustrate his many books.

Several books followed A Promise is a Promise (for a list see below), as well as plays. He even received the Ruth Schwartz Award in 1994, for his book Northern Lights.

Michael’s skills as a storyteller are legendary. He blends his ability to tell tales with such traditional Inuit methods for story telling as using string and bones as props for illustration. As the father of four sons and the eldest child of twelve, himself, he no doubt, had a great deal of practice entertaining, long before he found fame.

Michael is in high demand to speak at schools, libraries, museums, and conferences such as the Northern Hearts Festival and the Allainait Festival in Igaluit(where he will be on the 24th of this month, telling stories and teaching string game workshops). His latest book is Igvillu: The Littlest Sled Dog , published by Orca Book Publishers.

For more booking information, or more information on this amazing author, visit his website at http://michaelkusugak.com/ .



*A Promise is a Promise (co-authored w/ Robert Munsch) (Annick Press, 1989)
*Baseball Bats For Christmas (Annick Press, 1990)
*Hide and Sneak (Annick Press, 1992)
*My Arctic 1, 2, 3 (Annick Press, 1996)
*Arctic Stories (Annick Press, 1999)
*The Curse of the Shaman, A Marble Island Story (Harper- Trophy, 2006)
* Igvillu: The Littlest Sled Dog (Orca Book Publishers)

The Paper Bag Princess: Happily Ever After?

Robert Munsch (auth)
Michael Martchenko (ill)
Annick Press Feb 1992
Ages: 4-7 32pp
ISBN 0920236162

This Robert Munsch tale is the greatest fairytale ever written. Finally, after hundreds of years of perfect princesses, with perfect hair, waiting for spirit creatures and princes to come to their rescue (heaven forbid a damsel save herself), happily ever after doesn't mean hanging off the arm of a prince, anymore.

When a dragon smashes Elizabeth's castle, burns her clothes, and carries off Prince Ronald, does Elizabeth wait around for her fairy godmother to wave a magic wand and doll her up? No. Ever resourceful, Elizabeth dons the latest in recyclable fashion (a dirty old paper bag), and takes matters into her own hands. After tracking down the dragon, she bunks convention by outsmarting the beast, rather than winding up his helpless captive. A princess with brains! If Elizabeth had been locked in the tower, rest assured, she would have braided her own hair into a rope and climbed her way to freedom, long before any knight in shining armour could appear. She'd be living in a nice little flat in a trendy part of the city, writing a self help book for other damsels in distress, all before her would-be rescuer could even get his horse out of the stable. And does Elizabeth apologize for her appearance when, instead of thanking her, Prince Ronald complains that she does not look like a real princess? I am certain that, put in the same situation, Cinderella would have. But, our heroin, Elizabeth, takes a giant leap for tiny tot feminists everywhere by telling Ronald that he might look like a real prince, but he is nothing more than a "bum". She takes a pass on the nuptuals. Happily Ever After? For Elizabeth, you bet. She's at the top of her game - she's CEO of the noblemen, running the kingdom by herself, and making a fortune with her recycling business.

It is easy to underestimate the importance of a children's story. However, "The Paper Bag Princess" has been invaluable to more than one generation. Here is a story where the girl saves the day. She does it with brains and not brawn. And when the prince that she was supposed to marry turns out to be a sub-standard ego-maniac, bum she carries on without a single tear. If all fairytales were this clever, a billion dollar wedding industry might be in trouble, along with the expensive business of divorce. Munsch shows children that they do not need to follow what is expected of them, if it is at the cost of their self-esteem. This story has given society a new template for female behaviour - one that encourages a get-up-and-do-it-yourself, take no guff kind of attitude. (I actually recommend this book to my grown-up single girlfriends when they are going through a break-up).

Oh, and most importantly, "The Paper Bag Princess" is absolutely hilarious and incredibly entertaining. In my house, the actual book wore out before my children's requests to read it, and well before my patience to oblige. That makes it a definite Mommy C and the three little inspirations' favourite. If you haven't read it yet, do yourself a favour and get it. If you haven't read it since you were a kid, visit it again ...share it with your children, or a friend's child. If your household knows it well, take a minute to appreciate the implications of this classic.

• Read America Classic
• NEA's Cat-a-List for Reading
• Greatest Canadian Books of the Century List, Vancouver Public Library
• 100 Best Books List, Toronto Public Library