Orphans in the Sky

Bushey, Jeanne. Orphans in the Sky. Illus. Vladyana Krykorka. Calgary, AB: Red Deer Press, 2005.

This story tells the tale of two orphans who must figure out a way to survive in the harsh artic landscape after they are accidentally left behind by their people. They finally find a place to belong in the sky, where their games with flint and seal skin explain the origins of lightening and thunder. Rather than expanding the narrative, the tempera paintings locate the text and provide an indelible sense of place: It is through these illustrations that the northern landscape is transformed from a background setting into a central character and driving force of the story. Horizontal brushstrokes overlaid on almost every image give a sense of wind, weather and the real threat implicit in this beautiful but unforgiving northern landscape. Simple black-and-white scratchboard images run across the pages of text in a horizontal band, with a much more playful and decorative effect that helps balance the strong colour pages with the white space of the facing page. A beautiful story that touches on survival, belonging, fear, the landscape of the north, inuit culture and language, and the stories that inhabit natural phenomenon.