Open Collections

Tourout, Rachel (Wren)

University of British Columbia

My objective to creating Matthew Redhair is to explore dynamic characters and bring to light worldly injustices. The Cooperative Children’s Book Centre at the University of Wisconsin-Madison records findings that published books written by and about Indigenous children only make up 2.4% and 2.5% of the material in 2023 (CCBC,1). To change the present statistics, more intersectional Indigenous stories are needed to provide more variety and attract a more diverse readership. My novel, Matthew Redhair is designed to explore trauma, internalized racism, sexism, and homophobia in a controlled environment. I devise this novel to showcase the feelings of constant anguish, mental illness, fear, and survival responses that many people experience. This reality is inherent for many Indigenous people, driving their desire to heal communities damaged by colonialism. The methods in my graphic novel are creative decisions guided by Indigenous, Queer and Feminist approaches for visual formatting and character development. Using modern slang, characters with depth, gathering inspiration from popular texts as well as real-life experiences. I heighten its relatability by incorporating generational and regionally specific slang. I create characters with depth inspired by real people and real experiences to explore the sophistication of the human mind. I gather information from texts and media that I find popular, such as Lore Olympus, Reservation Dogs, and The Outside Circle. Lastly, the experiences are derived from my own life or people I know to create realistic characters in my story. The result is, hopefully, an engaging story that evokes compassion. In this paper, I summarize my story of Matthew Redhair and then look closely at the ways I use content and theory.

Text

2024-11-21

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/89694

Children's Literature

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/