Cree language use in contemporary children’s literature

An increasing number of children’s books are being written, illustrated and published in Indigenous languages, responding to the urgent need for children to be exposed to their ancestral languages to further the goals of language revitalization across all ages and restore intergenerational language transmission. Such publications range in style from instructional language-learning books that feature a picture alongside associated text – helping children to learn words in a manner similar to using flashcards – to fully developed storybooks written entirely in an Indigenous language or in a bilingual format, with an Indigenous language and an official, national or colonial language sharing the same page. This article focuses on three recent books that have adopted the final approach outlined above – using English as the primary medium with Cree woven into the text throughout the book: Nimoshom and His Bus (Thomas 2017); Stolen Words (Florence 2017); and Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock (Hunt 2019).