FernFolio

When they return to their Inuit village from a fruitless day of hunting, Brother and Little Sister find all of its inhabitants gone. After weeks of no game, the village’s hunters have decided to move the community across the river, and the two orphans are overlooked. Though the children follow their people to the river’s edge, they arrive too late to catch up with them, and realize they will have to find a way to survive alone until the community returns for them.
During the cold night that follows, Brother and Little Sister try to think of an animal cousin with whom they might be able to stay, but they are too fragile to survive in the Arctic sea with netsirq, the seal, too slow to live with tutsik, the caribou, and too afraid of the claws and teeth of nanook, the polar bear. Finally, Little Sister suggests that they go to live in the sky with father sun, mother moon, and their brothers and sisters, the stars and the northern lights.
When they climb into the night sky, however, Little Sister becomes afraid of the dark and Brother advises her to strike her flint to make a light, while he shakes his sealskin like a drum. Soon the children are caught up in their delightful game, and two new celestial beings are born.
This beautiful story underscores the Inuit beliefs that all creatures are related and that community is important, and celebrates the power and playfulness of nature. Orphans in the Sky is beautifully illustrated by Vladyana Krykorka, who seems to have made a speciality of pictures for books that take place in the Arctic!
FernFolio Editor