A new book called Y SPY WITH MY OWL EYES: YELLOWKNIFE, invites readers to spot quirky details and funny faces hidden in scenes from across the city. Co-created by youth with illustrations by artist Carey Bray, the book was born from an idea that Brendan Hancock had while out on a moose hunt.
“I was looking around and in front of me is just this beautiful scenery. The trees are all frozen, covered in ice. Then I looked behind me and you could barely tell where the horizon was because the white sky matched the white snow on the lake. And I was like, wow, this is such an amazing place to live and I start thinking of all the beautiful scenes in and around Yellowknife. And I’m like, you know what, this would be a good book idea,” Hancock told True North FM.
Hancock remembered pulling out a cell phone on a very cold day in Yellowknife to write.
“I held it in my coat because it was pretty cold and I was typing notes in my phone just so I wouldn’t forget all this stuff. And then later on, when we got back to the cabin where it was warm. I started expanding on those notes,”
Hancock said he put the idea on the shelf for about 10 months before a chance meeting with Amber Henry from Northern Quill Publishing.
“After telling her about this idea, she read the notes over and said it was really good. let’s make it happen. We did some book-writing workshops with the kids,” Hancock explained that the book just grew from there.
The book’s two main characters, Owliver and Ptommy, are accompanied by many other characters.
Hancock said that the book could be comparable to an eye spy or Where’s Waldo type book, but it’s all Yellowknife scenes along with facts, words from each of the languages in Yellowknife and translations.
“And if you’re born and raised here or heavily involved in the community, you’re going to pick up on some of our characters of the book and local quirks and things. So super fun for everybody,” said Hancock, who explained the main target audience is children, but the book is designed for all ages to be able to engage with and enjoy.
“We started by chatting with the kids, asking them what kind of scenes should be included in this book and then within those scenes, what kind of smaller scenes we would see in there and then we took their concepts and I worked with our illustrator Carey Bray and we helped that all come to life,” Henry told True North FM.
The concepts of the book continued to expand from the imagination of the PCR Dudes kids.
“The kids had such great, funny ideas and then Carey himself is a very humorous person, as well. So marrying all hilarity together was great and we have a really unique and playful look at Yellowknife. So I mean, there’s a disclaimer in the book that says, something to the effect of by no means is what you see in this book representative of what actually happens in these places, but it’s very entertaining and very fun. We have Bears, protecting their cranberries, we have. I’m trying to remember lots of Taylor Swift puns over at Fox Poke on the Rocks,there’s a fox chasing a boot. A few Yellowknife puns hidden in there, frozen eyelashes, and some ice skating foxes and all kinds of different things. There’s even sharks out on Houseboat Bay,” said Henry
The all-ages book is being launched by Northern Quill Publishing today and on June 24 at the Yellowknife Farmers Market, with all proceeds going to the PCR Dudes Club.
