Newly published author Bridget George has a lot to celebrate these days.
Her first published children’s book called, It’s a MiTig, has been announced as a top pick by the TD Summer Reading Club.
Mitig means tree and is one of many simple Ojibway words for animals and nature the book introduces.
George says it’s a big surprise – and a huge deal to be a part of a program that encourages kids to read.
“It makes the book more accessible to all kinds of families, not just Indigenous families, but it makes the book more accessible to like other reading programs and non-indigenous kids to be introduced to the language,” she said.
George lives in London, Ont., about a two-hour drive southwest of Toronto, but is originally from Kettle and Stony Point First Nation.
She said her Ojibway language is important to her and when she was pregnant with her son Noah, she realized finding Ojibway children’s books wasn’t easy.
“When we were filling up his nursery and I was looking for books that had indigenous characters and I specifically was looking for books that had my language in it, because that was something that was really important to me was to instill that love of language that I didn’t really have growing up, into him,” she said.
And that’s how It’s a MiTig came to be.
The book is a hit with 18-month-old Noah as well, according to George another book in currently in the works.
