The Raven Boy

In this retelling of an Inuit traditional story from the Western Arctic, a doll made by a poor old woman who is cast aside by her camp magically comes to life. The boy, with the beak of a raven from the materials the doll was crafted from, lives and is raised as the old woman’s son. When he is finally old enough to venture out on his own, he embarks on an epic journey to fight a beast from the depths of the ocean to create his own island world. This complex cautionary tale will leave readers pondering the values of empathy, vanity, and compassion for those less fortunate.

Rosemarie Avrana Meyok was born in a small Hudson Bay post on Reid Island, Northwest Territories, and now lives in Kugluktuk, Nunavut. She studied as a teacher in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, and worked as an Inuinnaqtun teacher and program specialist, developing Inuktut teaching resources for the Nunavut Department of Education. She went on to study linguistics at the University of Western Ontario and the University of New Mexico. She has worked as a language researcher and translator. Rosemarie has four children (two of whom were adopted to her sister through custom adoption), twenty grandchildren, and more than ten great-grandchildren. Rosemarie loves to sew, bead, and design traditional and contemporary clothing. She spends as much time as she can out on the land with her large family.

Marcus Cutler is both a children’s illustrator and an occasional climber of rocks. He lives in Windsor, Ontario, with his wife and two daughters.