What is Tia and Piujuq about?
From Syria, ten year old Tia and her parents, Amani and Samir - Amani in the latter stages of pregnancy - have recently settled in Montréal as refugees. Tia doesn't like her new life in its unfamiliarity in missing home - especially as her maternal grandmother is still in Syria - in the process she not having made any friends her own age. After their social worker Mme. Lajoie gives her a picture book on life in the far north, Tia discovers a portal in a building behind her Uncle Nazim's grocery store to the Arctic, specifically the northern tip of the mainland of Nunavut. There, Tia befriends a similarly aged Inuk girl, Piujuq, who is temporarily living in a tent on in a field by the ocean with her grandmother. Beyond playing as two little girls would do, Tia and Piujuq learn about each other's cultures, Tia primarily about the Inuk myths and legends through Piujuq's grandmother. Tia and even Piujuq don't embrace all of those legends, and it isn't until Tia learns not to be scared of those legends, especially those she doesn't understand, that she can begin to live fully in her new Montréal surroundings.
