Draft:The Pencil

The Pencil

Cover of the book "The Pencil" First edition cover
Author	Susan Avingaq and Maren Vsetula
Illustrator	Charlene Chua
Language	English
Genre	Children's picture book
Publisher	Inhabit Media Inc.
Publication date	September 3, 2019
Publication place	Canada
ISBN	978-1-77227-216-1

The Pencil is a children's book written by Canadian authors Susan Avingaq from Igloolik Nunavut and Maren Vsetula. The book is illustrated by Charlene Chua who also lives in Canada. Though this book, it tells the life of a child, Avingaq, living in Igloolik and making the best of what they have. The book teaches lessons of sharing, friendship, resourcefulness and family through its words and pictures. Avingaq is involved in many aspects of Igloolik culture and has represented it through film and books. She has worked as an Art director on the movies Sol, Before Tomorrow, and Uvanga (IMDB). She has also written the book Fishing With Grandma with Vsetula and Chua. The Pencil follows Susan and her family that live in an iglu community, highlighting the importance of resourcefulness. Avingaq has been praised for advocating diversity of children's literature through The Pencil.

Plot

Susan is a young Inuit girl living in the community Igloolik, Nunavut with her siblings Peter and Rebecca, and her parents whom she calls Anaana and Ataata. One day, her mother Anaana goes out to help other women in the village to deliver a baby. The pictures on this page display the remote area where they live covered in snow. While Anaana is away, Susan and her siblings are left in the care of their father, Ataata. To pass the time they play games with what they have such as drawing on the ice window of their igloo, hide and seek, and dolls. Through the illustrations, the viewer can see that the igloo is small with only the bare necessities such as blankets and cooking appliances. This aids the plot and themes within the story of resourcefulness. But after some time, they get bored of the games they always play, so Ataata takes out a pencil from Anaana’s special wooden box where she keeps important things. Susan and her siblings are surprised that Ataata is letting them use the pencil and paper since they are special to Anaana. The illustrations show that the pencil is already short and the box where they store the paper is small reflecting on the limited resources the family has. The children begin drawing and have lots of fun. As they keep drawing, the pencil gets shorter and shorter. When Anaana comes back, she is confused why her pencil is so short, but then the children show her their drawings. At first, she is not thrilled and tells the children they need to use their resources wisely. They cannot get another pencil till she can go to the trading post far away. Susan and the others feel sad, but Anaana reassures them with a smile and tells them she is happy that they had a fun day drawing. The illustration paired with this shows the family hugging to reinforce how important family and community is when living in Igloolik. Susan at the end reflects on how even if she and her family didn’t have much, they made the most of what they did have.

Themes

Family and Community

A central theme within The Pencil is family. The Inuit people have a strong sense of community within their culture. This has become a more important value in recent years due to their culture and language slowly becoming less and less relevant in a technologically advanced world. The effects of globalization have forced lots of communities like the Inuit to change. The introduction of bilingualism in Inuit culture prepares them “to enter the global community while the cultures and languages… are simultaneously being supported”. The introduction of bilingualism helps them enter the global stage, but also lets them keep their own culture and language. These bilingual speakers can share their own culture and community with others who speak English. Avingaq uses this strategy to convey her values of family and community through her book to English speakers and readers. Through this mixing of languages, Avingaq used this change as an opportunity to convey her everyday life to English speakers and readers. In the back of the book, she adds a pronunciation guide to some of the Inuktitut words she uses in the book to let her reader learn more about her community. The importance of family is seen through the three siblings, father, and mother. All three children play together and make the most out of what they have. Their father allows the children draw with the pencil and their mother does not condemn them after using it.They put the happiness of the children first even though they have limited access to resources. Furthermore, this reflects Avingaq's personality of someone who “loves to go camping and fishing… and often brings new people along to teach them these land skills. She enjoys … teaching younger people important cultural practices”. Through The Pencil, Avingaq demonstrates how important family and community are to her and the Inuit people.

Resourcefulness

The Pencil’s main theme that drives the story is the importance of resourcefulness. Over the years the Inuit community has been put into jeopardy because of climate change. Because of these changes, “the culture, economy, and the way of life of Inuit are under threat from human-induced climate change". The Inuit culture, because of this fact, is slowly being forgotten because the conditions of today cannot foster that way of living any longer. Even though not explicitly stated, Susan and her family are not by any means rich in the materialistic way. This can be seen through the illustrations of their igloo throughout the book. The igloo in the pictures is small for a five-person family with the bare necessities inside to survive in the harsh snowy climate. This story could have easily been a sad story about hardships of scraping by day by day, but instead portrays a story of being grateful for what they have. Throughout the story Susan and her siblings can be seen making the most out of what they have, playing games like hide and seek, dolls, drawing on the ice, showing they don’t need more to be fulfilled. The children learn from a young age the “value of using things wisely and being resourceful”. Even though Avingaq stresses the importance of resourcefulness, she also acknowledges the importance of having fun every now and then. Anaana does not get angry with the children when using her pencil, thus reinforcing the “valuable lesson about appreciating resources”.