New Anishinaabemowin children’s book hits the market this month
By Colin Graf
CHIPPEWAS OF KETTLE & STONY POINT FIRST NATION— While pregnancy heralds the beginning of a new chapter in every woman’s life, for Bridget George it also led to the beginning of a new and exciting step in her artistic career.
While waiting for the birth of her son, Noah, now almost a year-and-a-half years old, George was looking for children’s books featuring First Nations’ characters or stories. While she did find some, none used any words in Anishinaabemowin; so the artist decided to create her own.
Her hardcover book for young children, It’s a Mitig!, will be published this September by Douglas & McIntyre (D & M), and is written in a rhyming combination of Ojibwe and English, George explains.
“Writing it in that combination makes it a little less intimidating for other parents who are reclaiming their language along with their children,” she says.
Trying to find or create ways to help her son learn his ancestral language was significant to her.
“[It] was something important to me because growing up on the reserve I was able to have language classes in school but my son is living in London and he’s not able to have that benefit,” George says.
While the seed of the idea was planted, it was the job of decorating the nursery for the soon-to-arrive baby that gave nourishment and helped birth a full-fledged book. Bridget had decided to make animal illustrations with Ojibwe words to decorate the room, and then started to realize those creatures might help solve the missing book problem.
“If I can’t find books with the Ojibwe language, I should just write my own book for him,” she remembers thinking.
The text was originally a short poem she wrote about going to bed and, when she shared it with her husband and other family members, “everybody kind of gave me the same feedback, that ‘Oh this is great, this would be good for other people, too, other people would benefit from having this.’”
George put together sample pages for publishers with illustrations to show her work, with a proposal package introducing herself, explaining why she wanted to make the book, and detailing her background. She never heard back from most, but when her son was three to four months old Douglas and MacIntyre told her they wanted to publish the book.
Growing up in Kettle & Stony Point, George enrolled in the Graphic Design program at Fanshawe College and has been creating artworks in different media since, including painting and jewelry. She has been doing commissioned work as well as original creations.
She feels this is a great time to publish It’s a Mitig! since there is a lot of movement among Anishinaabe for “the reclamation of our identity, our language, our culture,” George says. She also hopes the book will be a tool to teach settler children about the existence of First Nations’ languages and the depth of First Nations’ cultural life. She has had a lot of interest from libraries and schools and hopes the book will find a home in those places.
“I definitely think there’s a place for it,” she adds.
Bridget would also like to see the book have its own offspring and become a literary family.
“I would love for it to be a series that teachers and librarians can use to introduce the language to children at story time, and build up that awareness of Indigenous representation,” she wishes.
It’s a Mitig! guides young readers through the forest while introducing them to Ojibwe words for nature, including “an amik playing with sticks and swimming in the river, a prickly gaag hiding in the bushes, and a big, bark-covered mitig,” according to the D & M website. The book features “vibrant and playful artwork,” an illustrated Ojibwe-to-English glossary, a simple introduction to the double-vowel pronunciation system, plus accompanying online recordings, according to the site.
The company made an offer to publish It’s a Mitig! “within hours” of reading George’s proposal, says Anna Comfort O’Keefe, D & M publisher.
“It was immediately apparent that she is immensely talented and passionate about introducing Anishinaabe culture and Ojibwe language to young readers and their families,” she says.
Bridget also created the logo for the company’s new children’s book line, the publisher said.
It’s a Mitig! is available for pre-order from D & M, Indigo, or Amazon.