Books with author Kenneth Harper

The Spaceman from the Planet Omelet is a charming character invented by Ken Harper (1948-2018) to entertain his young children and later grandchildren at bedtime or whenever a good story was called for. The spaceman invites the children to accompany him to any destination the children chooses. In this book the shiny, new spaceship zooms off to Antarctica where you meet the Emperor of the emperor penguins and get invited to attend a lesson for baby penguins about global warming. After a missing egg is delivered to the rightful parents it’s time to snuggle up in sleeping bags and watch the fire while the spaceman and the Emperor reminisce about earlier adventures.

Everything -- my home, my eskimo culture -- all has been taken from me. Even my dead father's body could not be claimed for sacred burial. In 1907 the New York World carried a sensational full-page article. Next to an artist's sketch of a pleading boy, his arms outstretched toward the American Museum of Natural History, the headline blared, "Give Me My Father's Body." Ten years earlier the renowned polar explorer Robert Peary had sailed intoNew York harbor with six Eskimos as his "cargo." He deposited them with museum scientists as "living specimens" and then abandoned them. Four Eskimos died within a year. One returned to Greenland. Only Minik, a boy of six or seven, remained. During his twelve years in New York, Minik learned English, played sports, went to church, and acquired a taste for big-city life. But all that ended abruptly when he found his father's skeleton on display at the museum. Disillusioned with white society and desperate to return to his people, Minik finally sailed for Greenland in 1909. He succeeded in relearning his native language and the hunting skills he needed to survive, and even assisted a new generation of polar explorers, yet the rest of his life became a search to find a place where he truly belonged.

In his search for the North Pole at the turn of the twentieth century, the renowned Robert E. Peary, long celebrated as an icon of modern exploration, used the Eskimos of northwestern Greenland as the human resources for his expeditions. Sailing aboard a ship called Hope in 1897, Peary entered New York harbor with six Eskimos as his cargo. Depositing them with the American Museum of Natural History as live "specimens" to be poked, measured, and observed by the paying public, Peary abruptly abandoned any responsibility for their care. Four of the Eskimos died within a year. One managed to gain passage back to Greenland. Only the sixth, a boy of six or seven with a precociously solemn smile, remained, orphaned and adrift in a bewildering metropolis. His name was Minik. Here, a century after the fact, is his story. A searing true tale of extraordinary darkness told with intensity and vigilance, Give Me My Father's Body is Kenn Harper's absorbing, intricately documented account of ruthless imperialism in the name of science, of cruel deceptions and false burials, and of the short, strange, and tragic life of the boy known as the New York Eskimo.

The Spaceman from the Planet Omelet is a charming character invented by Ken Harper (1948-2018) to entertain his young children and later grandchildren at bedtime or whenever a good story was called for. The spaceman invites the children to accompany him to any destination the children chooses. In this book the shiny, new spaceship zooms off to Antarctica where you meet the Emperor of the emperor penguins and get invited to attend a lesson for baby penguins about global warming. After a missing egg is delivered to the rightful parents it’s time to snuggle up in sleeping bags and watch the fire while the spaceman and the Emperor reminisce about earlier adventures.

Publisher: Blacklead Books, 1989 Frobisher Bay: Blacklead Books. 1989. Second Printing. Softcover. 0920245781 . Very Good with no dust jacket; ; B&W Illustrations; 279 pages Brown softcover with beige-pink lettering on cover and a Brown-tone photo of an Eskimo on the cover. Acknowledgements, bibliography, notes, Appendix, Afterword, Epilogue. Paperback. Book Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: No Dj. 8vo. pp. (13)275, b/w photographs, "When six-year-old Minik was chosen as one of six Eskimos from Qaanaaq, Greenland, to accompany explorer Robert Peary to New York City in 1897, he expected a brief adventure. Instead, he became an orphan and an exile. Treated as scientific curiosities, Minik's father and three others quickly succumbed to pneumonia, leaving the boy alone after the only other survivor returned to Greenland. Adopted by a middle-class family, Minik enjoyed a few relatively happy years until the family suffered financial disgrace. Peary refused to help support the boy or finance his return to Greenland, and Minik languished in poverty for several years. The horrific climax to his ordeal came when Minik learned that his father's body had been put on display at the American Museum of Natural History. Though his efforts to claim the body launched a media frenzy, they ultimately failed. Minik eventually returned to Greenland, where he had to relearn his native language and customs. Feeling marginalized among his people, he returned to the U.S. in 1916 only to die here two years later. Harper, who has lived for more than 30 years in the Arctic and is fluent in the Canadian Eskimo language, tells Minik's story straightforwardly and with sympathy. "

A 11-year-old Californian boy, Kenneth Ha, writes about a memorable friendship over the generations. A story by a living teddy bear with a mind of his own and ability to talk – and a shocking truth in itself. It’s about the loving relationship with its owner James, and his friend, Susan, and their journey to survive during World War II. But who were those other two boys in the previous war? All about a unforgettable friendship transcending time and souls…