Tanna’s Owl by Rachel and Sean Qitsuatik-Tinsley,
illustrated by Yong Ling Kang. PICTURE BOOK. Inhabit Media, 2019. $17.
978-1-77227-250-5
BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3) – ADVISABLE
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
When her father returns from a hunting trip with a baby owl
one day, Inuit child Tanna cares for it all summer long. It is hard, messy, and
thankless work. She must arise at 4 am, for example, to begin finding food for
it, which the owl soon starts demanding all day long. When summer is over,
Tanna has to leave her community to attend school, and must leave the owl,
Ukpik, behind. When she returns the following summer, she learns that Ukpik has
grown and flown away. Though she doesn’t miss the work, she misses the owl. One
day she encounters a snowy owl and believes it be Ukpik.
What a lovely story about life in the far north, working
hard for an animal that may never love you back, and finding joy in the process
nonetheless. As the author puts it in her letter of greeting at the front of the book, caring for
a found and helpless animal allows us to "bring things together" in a way that teaches us how to help and care. This
is a realistic, tender example of growing up elsewhere, based on the author’s
own experiences.
P.K. Foster, MLS, elementary school teacher-librarian
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