Magic Words: From the Ancient Oral Tradition of the Inuit
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Magic Words describes a world where humans and animals share bodies and languages, where the world of the imagination mixes easily with the physical. It began as a story that told how the Inuit people came to be and became a legend passed from generation to generation. In translation it grew from myth to poem. The text comes from expedition notes recorded by Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen in 1921. Edward Field got a copy from the Harvard Library and translated it into English.
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Gorgeous art, and I enjoyed the poem, but I'm not sure how this would work for young readers. Specifically: there's no narrative arc or main character. The concepts are pretty abstract (basically, magic of yore), the words pretty complex, and the ending a bit abrupt. I think kids could really enjoy the open-ended quality, especially accompanied with such beautiful illustrations, but I do wonder about this book's “sticking power”. Will it be something they come back to? That keeps sparking their imagination? I'm not sure.