What is a Story Sack?

A story sack is a large cloth bag that holds a book and an audio recording of the book, as well as props, characters and scenery to bring the story to life. Children and their parents act out the story as they read or listen together. With the props in a story sack, parents who are not strong readers have more ways to get involved with a story and to make reading fun for their children.

In Canada we have a family literacy program called The Storysacks Canada Program. The Storysacks Canada Program is an exciting new community literacy program which brings children’s books to life for families. The Storysacks Program makes use of community assets – it brings together all kinds of people, with many talents and strengths, to create interactive reading kits that make books fun for everyone. The Nunavut Literacy Council is an official trainer for this program. If your literacy or community group would like to get involved in making story sacks, call the literacy development coordinators for information, resources or training.

The Storysacks Canada Program is based on discovering people’s strengths. Story sacks are made by people in the community. Depending on the story, a story sack might include handmade masks, costumes, dolls, scenery, characters, furniture, houses, iglus or tools. Or it may include stuffed or plastic toys found in someone’s toy box or at house sales. When a group of people in the community get together to make story sacks, they use their talents and have fun together, as well as creating a wonderful new resource for families.

Gorretti Panika of the Nunavut Literacy Council demonstrating her story sack for the book, ‘Silatsiavaak’ at a Family Literacy Workshop in Arviat.

Ideas for Creating Story Sacks

• This would be an excellent project for a sewing and literacy program or a women’s literacy program.
• But men can be involved as well – making tools, small houses or furniture, model skidoos and qamutiit. Husbands or other relatives of the literacy group members, community volunteers, carpentry course participants, or Elders’ group members might be interested in participating.
• Creating story sacks is a great way to promote Inuktitut literacy. Your literacy group could make a series of story sacks based on Inuktitut books or oral stories and create a lending library for parents who want their children to be excited about reading in Inuktitut. Parents participate in a short training to show them how to use story sacks before they borrow them.