t‘uc‘up ?apsta činq na ‘yaqaq saštup minh = t‘uc‘up Meets the Baby Animals

If you had difficulty reading the “Excerpt” above, that’s because it’s in the Nuu-Chah-Nulth language, a language that is spoken by some of the Indigenous peoples whose traditional home is on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The book’s entire text is essentially in this Indigenous language, and, while there is a “Learn the words!” page at the end of the book, its contents do not directly link to each page’s text. Instead, English speakers must flip back and forth to build each page’s meaning. This cumbersome approach will discourage most majority culture readers who, at best, might treat the book as a wordless picture book.

The book’s concept is simple. As illustrated by Terra Mar via full-colour double-page spreads, the central character, a boy whose name translates as Sea Urchin, leaves the ocean’s/lake’s shore and enters the forest where he encounters, in order, a baby bear, grey squirrel, wolf, snake, deer and frog before returning home to his mother’s arms. When Sea Urchin meets each animal, the text offers an English language version of the sound that the animal might make and that Sea Urchin (and readers) could emulate. And so the frogs go “ribit...ribit...ribit” while a sleeping fawn emits “zzzz...zzzz...zzzz”. An interesting addition to each spread are the footprints made by the barefoot boy and the tracks of the pages’ animal.

According to an endnote, Peppermint Toast Publishing is giving 10% of the proceeds from every sale of this book to the Port Alberni Friendship Center. Though the book would be “Recommended” for its intended language community, the difficulty for readers to translate its text into English would limit its use elsewhere. Libraries might also be discouraged because two-thirds of the last spread, a black and white mirror image of the frog spread, invites readers to “Color t‘uc‘up”.

*Note: Because CM does not have access to the fonts for the Nuu-Chah-Nulth language, the title and the “Excerpt” are not an accurate renderings of the actual printed text.