Swift Fox All Along

Author/Guide: Rebecca Lea Thomas

Why a Booktrail?

What does it mean to be Mi’kmaq? And if Swift Fox can’t find the answer, will she ever feel like part of her family?

ISBN: 978-1773214474
Genre: Childrens

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What you need to know before your trail

When Swift Fox’s father picks her up to go visit her aunties, uncles, and cousins, her belly is already full of butterflies. And when he tells her that today is the day that she’ll learn how to be Mi’kmaq, the butterflies grow even bigger. Though her father reassures her that Mi’kmaq is who she is from her eyes to her toes, Swift Fox doesn’t understand what that means. Her family welcomes her with smiles and hugs, but when it’s time to smudge and everyone else knows how, Swift Fox feels even more like she doesn’t belong.

Then she meets her cousin Sully and realizes that she’s not the only one who’s unsure—and she may even be the one to teach him something about what being Mi’kmaq means. Based on the author’s own experience, with striking illustrations by Maya McKibbin, Swift Fox All Along is a poignant story about identity and belonging that is at once personal and universally resonant.

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Travel Guide

The Miꞌkmaq peoples of Canada

The Miꞌkmaq are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands. They live in Canadas Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec.

Many of them speak Miꞌkmaq, an Eastern Algonquian language. Once written in Miꞌkmaw hieroglyphic writing, it is now written using most letters of the Latin alphabet.