Eagle Drums

Among the Iñupiaq of the Arctic Circle, “the story of the Messenger Feast was passed down orally from generation to generation for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years,” Hopson writes in this illuminating retelling of the original tale, which follows an Iñupiaq tween who is kidnapped by eagles. All his life, Piŋa has navigated his parents’ grief over his missing older brothers, feeling as if he’s living in their shadow. When he is one day approached by Savik, a man who shape-shifts between golden eagle and human forms, Savik whisks Piŋa away from his mountainous home. With the eagles, Piŋa learns many skills and hard lessons, as well as the details of what would later become the tenements of the Messenger Feast, including the drum, dance, and construction of the qalgi, the ceremonial building. All the while, he yearns to return to his family. In this poignant adventure, the creator employs rhythmic prose that echoes the story’s oral traditions and offers illustrations rendered in rich, textured hues. An author’s note discusses how, like many Iñupiaq songs and dances, the story of the Messenger Feast was banned following the “encroachment of the missionaries into Indigenous territories and communities,” not to be resurrected until Hopson was in college. Ages 8–12. (Sept.)