Achimoona

Jenifer Lepiano was a writer and drama teacher in Toronto.

Achimoona is the Cree word for stories. The ten stories in this collection, written especially for young people by “the new storytellers” — Native storytellers working on paper and in English — were gathered from a medicine bag, as Maria Campbell relates in her fascinating introduction.

Two strong impressions emerge from the collection: the image of an Indian child isolated by an urban environment both from his heritage and from his non-Native peers, and a corresponding longing to rediscover the way of stones and bones and feathers. In “The Pillars of Paclian” by Jordan Wheeler, young Chuck is led by an earthworm through his own backyard where he undergoes a series of transformations, becoming in turn a decaying tooth, the hydrogen atom in a water molecule, and the sun. The lesson he draws from this experience combines Native philosophy with the philosophy that many contemporary science fiction writers have distilled from the new physics. Everything, large and small, has its place in the universe. Children from all backgrounds will relate to the challenge and the comfort of Chuck’s discovery.

Achimoona is attractively laid out and includes 16 coloured reprints of works by Native artists, as well as a brief biography of each artist and author.