Michael Bania
Originally from California, Michael Bania has settled into life in Alaska. She didn't head for the big cities instead, she lived in an Inupiat village working for a regional school district. As her biography notes, she worked to help preserve the Inupiat language and culture and her job was to produce a series of textbooks for which she also provided the illustrations. Art has been a big part of her life. She could draw from an early age and her father was an illustrator at the Disney studios.
While Michael was very knowledgeable about book design and production, she was not really qualified for the job that she interviewed for in Alaska. The school district wanted someone who could also run the TV studio, library, and graphics facility. Eventually they rewrote the job description to better match her background and skills. In addition to the textbooks noted above, Michael was also responsible for the district's printing needs, which ranged from yearbooks, posters and text books to something as mundane as report cards.
After a year in the job, she met her husband who had come north from Montana to be a school principal. They moved to a small village with less than 200 people and once there she learned that the Inuits really love children. Here son was born and spent the first eight years of his life in the small village. When her son was four years old she activated her teaching certificate and established a PreK-K program. The kids were at the perfect age and she taught in two villages. The Inuit culture is strong on storytelling and it gave her a chance to learn about the stories that kids liked and disliked. While teaching these young kids Michael vowed that "if I were ever to write children's books, I would do everything I could to make sure that they wanted to be read again and again."
Her experience and her observations about what did and did not work with kids and especially the kids that she was trying to teach led to the books reviewed below. She went to an SCBWI conference in California and learned that she really had a wealth of knowledge to contribute. It was just a matter of trying to put it all together. She entered a contest and although the initial manuscript was rejected, eventually her stories were accepted and published. While she has enjoyed writing about the Inuit, Michael currently wants to broaden the subject matter and setting in her books.
Eventually her husband retired and Michael decided to do the same. They went back to Montana and there she set up a separate studio. It was located in an old building in Great Falls. It was great to get up and go to work outside of her home. After a few years in Montana, they decided to return to Alaska; and once there Michael concluded that it was important to continue having a studio separate from where they lived.
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Reviews
Kumak's Fish: A Tall Tale from the Far North
Michael Bania
"Good day for fish." This is the refrain echoed by Kumak's wife, mother-in-law, and children after he has observed that the "...days are long. The nights are short, and the ice is still hard. Good day for fish." So he packs the entire family on the sled to head for the frozen lake at the mouth of the river. Everyone settles down at his/her own fishing hole and each exhibits great patience while waiting to catch a fish. The illustrations are a wonderful mirror of the details of their clothing, preparations for the trip, and their method of fishing. The obvious authenticity is a tribute to the observations made by Bania in her own experience living in the Arctic for the past two decades (she and her husband now live on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula). The tale takes an amusing turn as Kumak is the last to hook a fish using the famous "hooking stick," that had been lovingly carved by Uncle Aglu many years before. But little does he realize just what he has hooked. After he is unable to land the fish, he calls on each member of his family to help pull the fish out onto the ice. All of their efforts are to no avail and so the rest of the village must come to the aid of Kumak and his family. It is touch and go for a while but patience and perseverance are the watch words of the day and the fine catch is finally landed. Everyone is amazed to see that they have caught a long line of fish, each one holding on to the preceding fish just as Kumak's family and the villagers had all been holding on to each other. This is a wonderful blending of an old way of life and a "tall tale," balancing the ideas of cooperation, sharing, patience, and traditions of the area's people. Bania explains the inspiration for the story in the back matter. There are also helpful pronunciation tips for a couple of the Inupiat names. This is the sequel to Kumak's House. Both books will be useful for educators but families will enjoy sharing these humorous stories as well. 2004, Alaska Northwest Books, $15.95. Ages 3 to 8. Reviewer: Sheilah Egan (Children's Literature).
Best Books:
School Library Journal Book Review Stars, September 2004; Cahners; United States
ISBN: 0-8824-0583-7
ISBN: 0-8824-0584-5
Kumak's House: A tale of the Far North
Michael Bania
Set in a small Inupiaq (Eskimo) village in Alaska, this joyously silly tale gets increasingly hilarious as the character tries to make more room in his house, but winds up with less and less space. Kumak thinks his home is too small for his large and clamorous family, and visits a village elder to ask for advice. Aana Lulu tells him not to build a bigger house, but to ask Bear, Whale, Porcupine, Caribou and other animals to move in. Adults can see where the story is going, but small children will be too busy laughing at the sight of the caribou in Kumak's bed, or the rabbit sitting like a fur hat on grandmother's head. Bania, who lived above the Arctic Circle for nearly 20 years, illustrates cartoonishly but gets the Alaska stuff just right, from the kuspuk worn by Aana Lulu to the sundog (rainbow) in the winter sky to the warmth of family life in a home that turns out to be just the right size after all. 2002, Alaska Northwest Books/Graphic Arts Publishing, $15.95. Ages 4 up. Reviewer: Donna Freedman (Children's Literature).
Standards of Learning Information
Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People, 2003; Culture-I; People, Places and Environments-III; National Council for the Social Studies NCSS
ISBN: 0-8824-0540-3
ISBN: 0-8824-0541-1
Added 10/03/05
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If you're interested in reviewing children's and young adult books, then send a resume and writing sample to marilyn@childrenslit.com.