The White Ravens Database

Presented by   Internationale Jugendbibliothek / International Youth Library

English / Canada

Sukaq and the raven

Goose, Roy (text)
McCluskey, Kerry (text)
Kim, Soyeon (illus.)
Iqaluit, Nunavut: Inhabit Media Inc., [2017]. – 25 p.
ISBN 978-1-77227139-3

Raven  | Dream  | Creation myth  | Picture book

Reading age: 4+

White Ravens issue: 2018

OPAC

There is nothing that little Suqak enjoys more as he snuggles into his bed than listening to his mother tell him his favourite story about the raven creating the world. Hovering in this middle realm between waking and sleeping, Sukaq soars through the night sky with the huge black bird. For this picture book, Inuit storyteller Roy Goose and journalist-cum-writer Kerry McCluskey (who lives in Iqaluit/Nunavut) have taken a traditional Inuit creation myth and woven a young boy’s imaginary dream adventure into it. Elements of oral storytelling permeate the quiet third-person narration. Korean-born artist Soyeon Kim has collaged and crafted atmospheric three-dimensional dioramas in rich colours from a variety of materials to match the organic flow of the text. While the enormous raven frequently dominates the scenes, the friendship between the large mythological animal and the tiny boy is clearly expressed in every double-spread page.