ALEGO

While her grandmother gathers clams, an Inuit child combs a nearby stretch of Baffin Island beach, finding kinquit (sea lice), an orange aggaujaq (starfish) and other treasures to put in her basket. Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut, artist Teevee illustrates the outing in a naïve style that reflects its simplicity, using colored pencils to fill in the simply drawn forms and placing her figures in an open, rocky setting alongside wide expanses of blue sky and calm sea. The brief text in the Inuktitut language and alphabet sits atop an English translation that is sprinkled with musical words from the original—defined both in context and in a later glossary. The endpapers provide a map of Baffin Island and its surroundings, with an inset to locate it on a map of North America; all place names are indicated in Inuktitut script and Roman transliterations, with English alternative names where appropriate. Closing with a cozy feast of clams and hot tea, this is less a culturally specific episode than a harmonious, universally recognizable shared time between a child and her affectionate grandparents. (Picture book. 6-8)