Indigenous Storybooks is a Canadian website for children, families, community members, and educators. Inspired by the open-licensed stories from Little Cree Books, this project aims to make the text, images, and audio of stories available in Indigenous languages as well as English, French, and the most widely spoken immigrant and refugee languages of Canada. A story that is read in English or French at school can be read in ancestral languages by parents and children at home. In this way, Indigenous Storybooks provides access to stories in ancestral languages as well as English and French. Similarly, the audio versions of the stories can help beginning readers and language learners make the important connection between speech and text. A video introducing the Indigenous Storybooks project can be viewed here.
All of the stories on the Indigenous Storybooks website currently come from the Little Cree Books project in Alberta, Canada – a groundbreaking digital initiative promoting literacy in the Cree language. The stories are openly licensed, which allows the Indigenous Storybooks team to repurpose and translate them into other languages together with a modern, responsive web design for reading the stories. We are very grateful to Little Cree Books for making these stories freely available under an open license.
There are several other websites that offer Indigenous stories. A collection of resources, including other sources of Indigenous stories, can be found on our Resources page.
Sara Florence Davidson is a Haida educator and Assistant Professor in the Teacher Education Department at the University of the Fraser Valley where she teaches courses in literacy and Indigenous Education. She is also the project lead for Indigenous Storybooks. Her research interests include: Indigenous education, including the use of traditional Indigenous stories to support literacy development; K-12 literacy education; culturally responsive teaching and research practices; and narrative writing and research. Website: saraflorence.ca
Bonny Norton, FRSC, is a Professor and Distinguished University Scholar in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, UBC. She is the research advisor for Indigenous Storybooks. Her research focuses on identity and language learning, critical literacy, and international development. Website: faculty.educ.ubc.ca/norton
Liam Doherty is a PhD candidate in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, UBC, under the supervision of Prof. Patricia Duff. He is the technical advisor for Indigenous Storybooks and a strong advocate for open educational resources.
Christine Bridge has a PhD in Literacy Education and is currently a sessional lecturer in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, UBC. Her research interests include place and land-based pedagogies, teacher education, and literacy across the curriculum. Her work with Indigenous Storybooks is focused on developing our Indigenous Story Resources page.
See our Media page for examples of press and other news where the Indigenous Storybooks project has been featured.
A video introducing the Indigenous Storybooks project can be viewed here.
We thank Jo-ann Archibald and Jan Hare for helpful conversations, and warmly invite other Indigenous scholars for comment and collaboration.
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We warmly thank Education without Borders for their collaboration and support. |
Funding is gratefully acknowledged from the Mitacs organization as well as the following UBC sources:
We would like to acknowledge the Yuneŝit'in Government for their financial support for the Tŝilhqot'in language translations.
Icons provided by FontAwesome (via Fontello) and Elegant Circles.
Our logo was created and generously donated by Haida artist Ben Davidson. Ben drew his inspiration from reading books to his own children. The child’s open embrace is also an open book, and the heart reflects his children’s love of stories.
Though Ben is a Haida artist, Indigenous Storybooks is a resource that includes the stories of many different nations. Therefore, he created a design that speaks to our universal engagement with and appreciation of stories.
Graphic design for the logo was donated by Haida artist Tyson Brown.