Orphans in the Sky

Anne Hutchings, a former elementary-school teacher-librarian with the
Durham Board of Education, is an educational consultant.

Orphans Brother and Little Sister set out across the tundra in search of
food to share with their starving people. Returning home with nothing
but a few cranberries, they find their campsite abandoned and their
people on the move, looking for better hunting grounds. Unable to
survive on their own with nothing but a small piece of flint and some
old sealskin, they consider all their Arctic animal cousins with whom
they might live. None seems suitable, so Little Sister suggests that
they live among the stars. At first frightened by the darkness and
immensity of the sky, Brother urges Little Sister to strike her flint.
Delighted with the resulting streaks of light arching across the heavens
and the drum-like sound of the dried-out sealskin, the children play and
play. In fact they are so happy that they decide to make the sky their
home. When their people eventually return, they are awestruck by the
celestial display and rename the orphans Lightning and Thunder.

Jeanne Bushey and Vladyana Krykorka, whose earlier book, The Polar
Bear’s Gift, was well received, have once again successfully
collaborated on this Inuit myth. Young children who are frightened by
storms will find it comforting to know that the lightning and thunder
they see and hear are just Brother and Little Sister playing in the sky.
Recommended.