"Bapa is a traditional canoe maker.
He makes them out of kapok trees."
Today we are going for a long canoe ride to fish and visit family - we have done this before but this trip is special because it will be last one.
The repeated refrain will make this book easy to share with your youngest students but it also (if read slowly) could help add that all important layer of poignancy and sadness for your older readers and lead to a discussion about loss of culture and loss of cultural traditions.
On the way we sing, we tell stories, we fish, we listen,
we look, we laugh! I love my country!
we look, we laugh! I love my country!
"We must leave our country ... I don't want to leave my home."
"Bapa lets the canoe go and it drifts away."
Baba's Last Canoe was published last month by Magaba Books - thanks for my review copy.
Publisher blurb: Bapa’s Last Canoe is a simple, heartfelt picture book about Bapa, the author’s grandfather, a traditional canoe maker, and the making of his last canoe. Bapa takes his three daughters (the author’s mother and aunties) away on a canoe ride to connect to family and Country for the last time before his daughters leave for school in the city. They set off on the long journey and along the way they camp out and meet family, fish, roast periwinkles and longbums on the fire, tell stories and laugh.
“I love my country so much. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye, but I know one day we’ll all return… and we’ll sing, tell stories, fish and laugh again like we used to in Bapa’s canoe.”
This book is based on the story of Liman (Harry Morgan) who was a respected Wadjigamy man born at Mandjimamany (Point Blaze) in the Northern Territory in 1916. He was a canoe maker, hunter, community mediator and family man, who lived off the land and travelled the seas. Lipman frequently travelled the coasts with his wife Kitty and their kids in their canoe visiting family and exploring country. The author's mother shared her memory of the last canoe journey. "I could see in my dad's face, that he was sad, he was sad."
Maree McCarthy Yeolu is also the author of Brother Moon. Read more about Samantha Campbell here.
I would pair Bapa's Last Canoe with this book:
Leaving home behind and sending children to a faraway (white) school reminded me of this book from Canada which explores lost culture (Content warning this book is for older and very mature readers).
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