David Fadden Authors and Illustrates a Children's Book

As an accomplished artist whose paintings are well known across the country, David Fadden now has a new book out, “Kaheriio’s Busy Day.” The children’s book is a self-published book under the direction of the North Native American Traveling College. NNATC’s Executive Director, Russell Roundpoint actually conceived the idea of the book after seeing a number of children’s publications published by the Ojibway. The main character is based on Roundpoint’s grandson Kaheriio.

The story is about a young boy and all the things he does during one eventful day. It is an engaging and relatable story for all ages. The story is written in English and a shorter Mohawk version is included. A literal translation from English to Mohawk would have taken too much space and to keep the intent and main story line of the book, the Mohawk version is shorter. For people who are just learning Mohawk, the ease of reading this version is much easier than the literal translation of the English story. Nancy Thompson and Dan Thompson wrote the Mohawk version of the story.

The book took about six months to complete working on a program directly on Create Space on Amazon. The illustrations were created digitally using Photoshop and sent to Amazon. While discussing his latest creation, Fadden said he hopes to see more artist work at NNATC in the near future. He also hopes to see more jobs open up for our talented artists who have so much to offer commenting on how the future is digital and many young Akwesasne artists are very competent in this area. With such a rich and beautiful culture, Fadden sees Mohawk artists as being strong and intentionally or unintentionally teaching respect in every painting, beadwork and sculpture. Fadden is currently working on an animated version of “Kaheriio’s Busy Day” and looks forward to writing and illustrating a series of books with Russell Roundpoint. They hope to introduce a heroine to the story and use the books as a teaching tool in Mohawk. Along with teaching Mohawk, using our tales, legends and stories are a perfect platform to teach valuable lessons to our children, in hardcover, soft cover, digitally and in animated form.

Each year as summer approaches he returns to Onchiota to work with his Rakeni, John Fadden and his brother Dan on their “Six Nations Indian Museum”. There you can see many of his paintings, as well as work from his father and his late grandfather Ray Fadden. The Six Nations Indian Museum opens on July 1st of every year.