Customer Reviews

Gitchi Gumee

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Gitchi Gumee means "big water," and those of us who border on Lake Superior--one of the five Great Lakes--we know the name is perfect.

Ann Margaret Lewis tells in short verses ideal for children her story of the big waters and a little boy's curiosity about sailing it.

Kathleen Chaney Fritz's illustrations of the "human face" of the lake are wonderful. You can feel the lake's movement and season changes. Some of the pictures are so beautiful you could frame them.

"I puff out my cheeks and blow my wind," Lewis writes to show how Lake Superior can--and does change so quickly.

This story tells that the lake is home to families playing on the shore, people boating and fishing, and huge ocean freighters carrying products around the world. Many shipwrecks lie beneath the lake's waters.

Armchair Interviews says: If your child likes adventure told with great illustrations, this book is a keeper.

Gitchi Gumee by Anne Margaret Lewis is an original picturebook story enhanced with the museum quality paintings of Kathleen Chaney Fritz. The result is a beautiful presented tale of a young man's remarkable journey through the deepest, greatest bodies of water in a small sail boat. Inspired by the Native American tales of the "big water" and as exemplified in the famous "Hiawatha" saga poem of Longfellow, Gitchi Gumee showcases the adventurous young man's nautical sally into the all-knowing majesty of the open sea. Perfect for both school and community library picturebook collections, Lewis and Fristz's Gitchi Gumee is enthusiastically recommended for young readers and their parents for its superb illustrations in service to a truly inspirational and entertaining story.

The sea becomes a young man's mentor in this beautifully rendered read. "Watch and listen closely and you will know my faces well," says Gitchi Gumee. Purposeful poetry and incredible illustrations communicate the many moods of big water, giving young readers a newfound respect.

A detailed review (not my own work) can be found at [...] .

Among Lois Beardslee's objections, "Let's look at Gitchi Gumee's cover illustration. It is an image of an older white male winking from below the surface of the water to a child in a sailboat next to a historic lighthouse. . . . In addition, the only--I repeat, the only--times we describe underwater-associated human characters in our traditional stories about the lakes are in very dangerous contexts, in preventive stories we tell to our children. Usually these stories are about characters that have been killed or intentionally kill other human beings.

"In the case of an image of a middle-aged male who appears from beneath the water to lure a child, this occurs in only one context that I know of, and that is as a sexual predator, a persuasive character who sometimes disguises himself as a loon. When I first saw illustrator Kathleen Fritz's image in the guise of an Ojibwe-style children's story, I gasped in horror. The very notion, the very premise upon which this book is based--that of an older adult male luring and interacting playfully with a child from the surface of a body of water--implies the exact opposite of what our traditional stories actually say about a topic that would be profoundly important in any culture. Imagine how confusing and potentially shameful it would be for a Native American child from this region to be confronted in a classroom situation in which such stories from one's own tradition about so sensitive a subject were arrogantly violated and contradicted by a book read or provided by an authority figure such as a librarian or a teacher."

Please read the full review if you are considering adding this book to your collection: Beardslee, Lois. "Lois Beardslee on Mackinac Island Press." American Indians in Children's Literature. Web. 27 Jun. 2007.