NDN Girls Book Club heads north, way north
Sandra Hale SchulmanSpecial to ICT
After a hugely successful tour through the Navajo Nation, NDN Girls Book Club and Tlingit & Haida Central Council are teaming up in Alaska to continue the passion for reading, celebrating Indigenous authors, and inspiring the next generation of Indigenous writers and poets. The Central Council is a tribal government representing over 37,000 Tlingit and Haida Indians worldwide.
The kick-off event will take place in Juneau, Alaska, on May 15th, and the team will journey by land, sea and air to distribute thousands of books May 15-24.
'We were working with Four Kinship and Abilani Mountain Press on our first tour,' Kinsale Drake, executive director of the Book Club, told ICT. 'That one was amazing, but a lot of work. That was the first time we had ever tried planning something like that.
'We were talking to a friend of ours, Tristan Douville, special projects manager, Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, who helped make it happen along with Mischa Jackson, tribal education liaison at Tlingit & Haida. The first tour we had a pink truck full of books, but now we're talking about a pink canoe as we're traveling by sea and it's a new geographical challenge to get around in Alaska to the more remote villages and schools.
'Part of doing the book drop is emphasizing the diversity of Native peoples from all over. Misha Jackson is with a newly formed education development department, part of the uniqueness of education in Alaska to help rural villages.
'I'm involved in school systems decision-making,' Jackson told ICT. 'It's family engagement helping kids transition into kindergarten, middle school, then out of high school. As a regional tribal partner, we're able to play a stronger role in what that looks like for our tribal citizens because our tribal citizens are the ones that stay. So our rural villages, they dictate what family engagement looks like in school and what they want and so we're just trying to help amplify all that.
'We don't get a lot of books or access to Indigenous authors down south, so we have some people at Alaska Heritage Institute who made books, specifically language books, that relate to our story and place-based education. We are lacking in access to what's happening in Indigenous country down south and so we want to have access to those young adult books, too. They still see themselves in these stories even if it's a culture so different, it really is that unspoken bond.'
At the book drop events, there will be readings and meals with specific regional foods, locally sourced and gathered deer meat, fish, smoked salmon, black cod, and the local favorite seal tacos and muktuk – whale blubber. They will also serve herring eggs collected off sea kelp in fish egg salad.
'Yes, the staple that everybody can smell and feel right now is herring egg season,' said Jackson. 'It is its own beautiful underground; I teach people that there's a herring egg mafia.
'We want the events to feel comfortable and familiar for kids and families with traditional foods and books and storytelling with kids and the elders in the same place,' Drake said. 'In addition to literature, I think it's a level of healing when it comes to books and education given the traumatizing history of education and elders who are still with us having lived through a lot of horrific instances in history. We provide new and healing spaces where you can repair or even generate new relationships to literature. That is one of the most exciting parts of these journeys that we do for sure and I'm super excited.'
They already have thousands of books ready to ship, including brand new titles – free books with no strings attached. Drake dreams of being the Dolly Parton of the Native book world as Parton has given away millions of books for years to kids through her Imagination Library.
'I'm in Nashville and Dolly is our role model down here because of her spirit of generosity,' Drake said. 'With the Department of Education and the Institute of Museum and Library Services under attack, we have to show up and do the work as we can't depend on those organizations anymore.
'That's the reality for indigenous peoples. We've never been able to rely on or trust in those structures because they weren't made to uplift us, and we see that every day in systems. On a community level these are events that we can do and will have a great impact on these communities. Having these kinds of moments with our students, it's been rewarding in itself to dream and just think ahead. This is not a one-and-done event. We don't operate like that. This was our focus last year to continue community-based, creative, sustainable models for libraries, where people can exchange ideas and exchange the books.'
They are expecting about 275 to 300 students K-12 in the rural villages plus family members – aunties, uncles, grandparents.
"All I ever read growing up was 'Indian in the Cupboard' and 'Island of the Blue Dolphins' so this is a whole new world,' Drake said.
TOUR SCHEDULE
May 15: Juneau, Alaska
May 18: Angoon, Alaska
May 20: Yakutat, Alaska
May 22: Klukwan, Alaska
May 24: Hydaburg, Alaska
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