Suzanne Stark Morrow

Inatuk's Friend is the story about Inatuk and his family who live on the ice. Their family relies on hunting seal and hares to survive the tough, cold winters. For some reason, that winter there were no seals or hares to hunt. Inatuk’s family decides to move to land so they could survive. With this, Inatuk knew he would be leaving his best friend behind. The illustrations in this book are very simple, there really aren’t many details in this book. This wouldn’t be my first choice to use in the classroom because I had a hard time following the story line, so most likely young children will as well. If I were to use it in the classroom, I would want the children to understand that sometimes friends and relatives move away, but it doesn’t mean they are gone forever.… (más)

This is a story about an Eskimo family whom live in a village on the ice. This family relies on hunting for animals like seals and hares, as these were all the things they needed for their survival in the tough winters. Tough winters didn’t come all the time, but this was a winter where there were no seals or hares to hunt and survive on. While Inatuk’s family needed to move to the land or resources and that is when Inatuk knew he would be missing his best friend, who he had to leave behind. The illustrations in this story are very simple and there aren’t a lot of details to the pictures. Each of the characters have very similar facial characteristics because they are simple people, who live a simple life. These simple characters are shown as simple in this story as they are in real life, which is something new to learn about. There are a couple lessons to take away from this story, one is about new friendships can become of it no matter where, and memories will last forever. The other piece of information children can take away from this piece of literature is to learn something about a Native group, like the Eskimos, in this story and about all of the hard times they go through each day. Most children have probably never had to hunt and harvest for their food, so this is a good representation of what it may be like for Native families and their ways of life.… (más)