The Missing Sun

Kelly L. Green is co-author of The Ethical Shopper’s Guide to Canadian
Supermarket Products and associate editor of the Canadian Book Review
Annual.

This book is an excellent illustration of the confusion children must
sort through in putting together for themselves a viable picture of the
world and how it works. Emily and her mother, a meteorologist, have
moved from Regina to Inuvik. Emily’s mother tells her that, in Inuvik,
the sun disappears during the winter; she explains this fact
scientifically, with references to the equator, the earth’s axis,
tilt, and so forth. Emily puts her mother’s dry, complicated
explication where most kids would—right out of her mind.
“Meteorological mumbo jumbo,” she comments to her friend, Josie
Tucktoo. Josie, meanwhile, insists that Raven the trickster will take
the old sun away, and that eventually a new, bigger sun will appear.
Sure enough, sometime after New Year, a new bright big sun appears on
the horizon. “Raven will never steal this one,” comments Josie.

This book clearly outlines the dilemma facing adults and children as
they try to communicate about the world. Eyvindson neatly captures the
adult’s obtuseness (and a more obtuse adult than Emily’s mother
would be hard to find) as she foists inappropriate scientific concepts
on a child who finds more meaning and sense in the Native story of
tricky Raven. I believe that children will also appreciate, consciously
or not, Eyvindson’s understanding of the daily obstacles they must
face as adults tell them what and how to think. Illustrations by Rhian
Brynjolson are cold, colorful, and otherworldly—definitely appropriate
for a tale of the Far North. Recommended.