Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail
Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail is a historian and a former Historian Laureate for the city of Edmonton, as well as a former president of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society. She has written For the Love of Flying: The Story of the Laurentian Air Services and Polar Winds: A Century of Flying the North, and edited In This Together: Fifteen Stories of Truth and Reconciliation. Her first book for children is Alis the Aviator. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta.
Kids Books (2)
Synopsis:
Come along on an aviation journey with Alis! This spunky female guide will take you through an ABC of planes featuring gorgeous cut-paper art.
An A to Z of planes past and present, this book has stunning cut-paper art and a cute-as-a-button guide named Alis. Named for Dr. Alis Kennedy, likely one of the first Indigenous women to obtain a commercial pilot license in Canada, Alis will take you on an aviation tour from the Avro Arrow to the Zeppelin and everything in between.
Meticulously researched and uniquely crafted, this is a one-of-a-kind book that will delight aviation fans big and little.
Educator Information
This resource contains limited Indigenous content and is a supplemental resource for learning the alphabet and exploring cut-paper art imagery. There is some information included that provides more details about Dr. Alis Kennedy, which is why this resource has been listed as containing Indigenous text. It is up to readers to determine if this work will be useful for their purposes.
Recommended for ages 3 to 7.
Additional Information
40 pages | 9.00" x 9.00"
Synopsis:
A gorgeous picture book that pays homage to aviator Freddie Carmichael — the first Indigenous commercial pilot in the Arctic —with each month of the year highlighting moments from his life, the beauty of the North and the power of dreams.
When Freddie was young, he saw a plane up close for the first time when it dropped off supplies at his family’s remote bush camp. He was instantly hooked.
Freddie has flown for nearly seventy years, doing everything from supply runs to search and rescue to transporting dog teams to far-flung areas.
This book celebrates Freddie’s early dreams of flying and his later achievements. Readers move with Freddie through the year, hearing about his journey as a pilot and leader, while learning the names of the months in Gwich’in and Inuvialuktun at the same time. Art from Inuvialuit painter Audrea Loreen-Wulf perfectly captures the incredible Western Arctic as well as Freddie’s love for aviation.
Reviews
"The story of an Indigenous boy who dreamed of taking to the sky unfolds across the year in this picture-book biography that draws on Gwich’in language, the power of an unshakable passion, and, as rendered in the gorgeous painted illustrations, the beauty of nature." —Booklist
Educator Information
Recommended for ages 3 to 7.
Additional Information
32 pages | 11.31" x 8.25" | Hardcover