Who was Louis Riel?” asked my daughter’s American boyfriend. “A famous Canadian explorer!” she replied cheerfully. I groaned. How could she not have known Riel was a Metis resistance leader hanged for treason after the 1885 Battle of Batoche? Perhaps if she had read a book such as Maxine Trottier’s Storm at Batoche in primary school, her curiosity about him might have prompted her to do more research on Riel when she got older.

Trottier, a CLA Book of the Year winner, uses fiction in picture books to interest young children in stories of the past. Her latest tells of a 19th-century boy who falls from a wagon during a prairie storm near Batoche, Saskatchewan. The lad, and by extension the reader, come to know Louis, the Metis who rescues him, as a “good man.” John Mantha’s illustrations depict a smiling, twinkly-eyed Riel. Trottier writes that Louis patiently teaches James to bake galette, a type of bread that James calls bannock. Readers can try the recipe at the back of the book and discover that by either name, it tastes great! The author effectively uses the route through the reader’s stomach to strengthen her message about the importance of bridging cultural differences and sharing.

Because few facts are mentioned in the story or the sketchy author’s note at the end of the book, readers find out little about the Battle of Batoche, not even when it occurred. Not a research book, this story is more a “call to the table” for the very young, where they can eye the feast of Canadian history. Their appetites thus whetted, they can dig in when they’re older to find out more about Riel and others who flavoured the character of our nation.