Michael Arvaarluk Kusugak is a Canadian Inuk storyteller and children's writer, who tells stories about Arctic and Inuit culture.
18 Facts About Michael Kusugak
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Michael Kusugak was born April 27,1948, just north of Chesterfield Inlet, at a point of land called Qatiktalik.
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Michael Kusugak has later worked as an educational administrator for Nunavut Arctic College.
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Michael Kusugak grew up living a traditional, nomadic Inuit life with his family.
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Every night, Michael Kusugak pleaded with his grandmother to tell him a story, until she eventually gave in.
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Michael Kusugak's books have been published in French, Korean, Japanese and Braille.
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Michael Kusugak illustrated A Promise is a Promise in 1988, and since then has been to Nunavut many times to visit, photograph and paint the land and people.
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Michael Kusugak has written and illustrated a set of her own books depicting the land and animals of the north: Arctic Land, Arctic Sea, and Arctic Sky.
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Michael Kusugak holds a unique place in Canadian children's literature, speaking from "the in-between of cultures" and finding common ground that relates to the very different parts of Canada.
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Michael Kusugak is valued not only for the captivating content of his books, but for his role as one of very few Inuit authors, and his commitment to sharing stories.
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Michael Kusugak has to take stories that he naturally tells out loud in Inuktitut, and put them into writing in English.
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Michael Kusugak is known for his power to keep large groups of kids captivated for long periods of time with his stories.
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Michael Kusugak is a storyteller, not only a writer of children's books, and spends a lot of his time telling stories to children in schools and libraries.
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Michael Kusugak's work reflects many of the common themes in Canadian Indigenous children's literature.
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In Michael Kusugak's first book, A Promise is a Promise, a girl named Allashua decides that her mother's warnings about the sea ice must be wrong, and decides to go and play near the cracks in the spring ice.
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Michael Kusugak is taken by creatures who live under the ice, the Qallupilluit, who crave children but have promised never to take children who are with their parents.
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Michael Kusugak gets all the way back home before freezing solid, and after her parents warm her up, she tells them what she promised.
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Michael Kusugak has written picture books, young readers' novels and chapter books, and one non-fiction picture book.