Muin, Mi’kmaw night sky story
Cooler autumn weather is slowly overtaking summer heat, and in the night sky the Big Dipper – the constellation of Great Bear, Muin in Mi’kmaw – moves slowly closer to the horizon in its yearly circuit of the heavens. The Mi’kmaw night sky story of Muin is recounted and beautifully illustrated in the best-selling children’s book Muin and the Seven Bird Hunters / Muin aqq L’uiknek te’sijik Ntuksuinu’k (CBU Press 2010).
We have some news to share about Muin and the Seven Bird Hunters. The book has been selected for a forthcoming collection curated by IBBY Canada titled From Sea to Sea to Sea: Celebrating Indigenous Picture Books. “From board books to picture books for older readers, the 100 recommended titles reflect the diverse First Nations, Métis, and Inuit cultures, languages, perspectives, and experiences across Canada. The collection will be published in a digital catalogue by IBBY Canada (the Canadian chapter of the International Board on Books for Young People) in Fall 2018.”
Closer to home, we are delighted that the Discovery Centre in Halifax (1215 Lower Water Street) plans to include the Mi’kmaw night sky story in its portable planetarium program, “Above and Beyond.” The digital planetarim is a big blow up dome that uses digitarium software and a projector to display real-time images of the night sky (stars/constellations/planets) used to teach students about astronomy. The Centre plans to create an audio component, a Mi’kmaw person reading from the book during projection of the constellations and the artwork from the book. This show-within-a-show is intended to teach students around the province about this Mi’kmaw night sky story.