Keepsake Stories

Keepsake Stories

Welcome to Keepsake Stories, a library of interactive picture books that aims to preserve endangered languages. Each book is a written at a first grade reading level. Books all include full hand illustrated artwork, tools for learning words from endangered language, pronunciation guides, and accompanying soundscapes. Readers can also make additions to the story, and print their custom copy as a physical booklet.

Our current prototype contains one story dedicated to the Western Abenaki language, and a story of the Abenaki hero Gluskabe. This story tells of how Gluskabe shrunk beavers down to the size they are today, and how he formed Sugarloaf Mountain. This prototype has all the tools integrated, and is set up for use in educational spaces. We hope this book can help preserve Abenaki speech by introducing it to a wider audience.

Further Resources

If you or your kids are interested in learning more about the Western Abenaki language, http://westernabenaki.com/ was an extraordinarily helpful resource in the creation of this story. There you can find proper language-learning resources, including recorded audio of native speakers.

If you happen to be more interested in the scientific side of linguistics, this collection of resources from Swarthmore College has links to almost all of the sources we used, and makes for an excellent starting point for research.

The Flock of Fish Team

Hazel Norton: 

• Lead cultural researcher
• Game Designer
• Additional Programming

Nicholas Mastrangelo: 

• Programming

Azulia Merkel: 

• Producer
• Game Designer 
• Sound Designer
• Additional Programming

Cheyenne Lampman: 

• Artist

Megan Pearson: 

• Narrative designer
• Pronunciation Voice Over