With this new offering, the authors of Pemmican’s successful Nanabosho series of picture books maintain their commitment to aboriginal storytelling but depart from that series and its customary story-within-a-story form.

Goose Girl introduces Marie, a 10-year-old Métis girl of Cree/French ancestry living in northern Canada who waits eagerly every fall for the Canada geese to arrive on a nearby lake. Marie’s remarkable affinity for the geese causes her Mishoom (grandfather) to host a feast at which he gives Marie her spirit name, Niskaw (goose). During the feast, Mishoom charges Marie with responsibility for bringing to their people the teachings of the geese. It becomes her life’s work to visit the sick, comfort the dying, and, ultimately, call the geese to take people’s spirits home to the promised land.

 Joe and Matrine McLellan, who have Nez Perce and Ojibway Cree roots respectively, tell this story simply and effectively, with a keen respect for Métis heritage. They add authenticity by strategically weaving Cree and French words into their text.

Goose Girl is an attractive book featuring large-print, double-spaced text in a non-traditional but reader-friendly font. It presents its images variously – as full pages, sidebars, even as header and footer. The book’s a showcase for 28 oil paintings by visual artist Rhian Brynjolson, here in her fifth collaboration with the McLellans. Brynjolson’s illustrations enhance the text dramatically – contrasting light and shade, varying perspective, and acknowledging both physical and spiritual worlds.

With its aboriginal characters, northern setting, and themes of nature appreciation, family, faith, tradition, individual responsibility, aging, and dying, Goose Girl has curriculum as well as story appeal. Accordingly, it’s a good candidate for home, school, and public library purchase.