As the reteller states in his preface, “Myths allow us to recognize our proper role in the web of life,” but this anthology...
Twelve folk tales from various Amazonian cultures are retold, but their audience is unclear.
A full-bleed illustration opens each myth, with greens, browns, oranges and golds predominating. The short myths and pourquoi tales feel fragmentary, although the longer stories are just as confusing. Perhaps the convoluted publishing history is to blame. Popov, the Russian illustrator, created the intricately dreamlike gouache and India ink paintings for an academic collection of Brazilian tales. (Humans wear few clothes, as is natural in this region.) Groundwood and a Brazilian publisher wanted to reuse the illustrations and invited Munduruku to present selected tales in a voice that is unquestionably authentic but will probably feel unfamiliar to North American readers, particularly young readers accustomed to European-American storytelling voices. Eight different groups are represented, but the book doesn’t provide information about the different cultures; strong relationships among the region’s flora and fauna and its indigenous groups are revealed. There is no map, but there is an excellent glossary. Readers hoping for drawings of the many local animals and plants mentioned will be disappointed.
As the reteller states in his preface, “Myths allow us to recognize our proper role in the web of life,” but this anthology will require an intermediary who can creatively make the connections between the text and its readers. (Folk tales. 9-12)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-55498-185-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
Though usually cast as the trickster, Coyote is more victim than victimizer, making this a nice complement to other Coyote...
Two republished tales by a Greco-Cherokee author feature both folkloric and modern elements as well as new illustrations.
One of the two has never been offered south of the (Canadian) border. In “Coyote Sings to the Moon,” the doo-wop hymn sung nightly by Old Woman and all the animals except tone-deaf Coyote isn’t enough to keep Moon from hiding out at the bottom of the lake—until she is finally driven forth by Coyote’s awful wailing. She has been trying to return to the lake ever since, but that piercing howl keeps her in the sky. In “Coyote’s New Suit” he is schooled in trickery by Raven, who convinces him to steal the pelts of all the other animals while they’re bathing, sends the bare animals to take clothes from the humans’ clothesline, and then sets the stage for a ruckus by suggesting that Coyote could make space in his overcrowded closet by having a yard sale. No violence ensues, but from then to now humans and animals have not spoken to one another. In Eggenschwiler’s monochrome scenes Coyote and the rest stand on hind legs and (when stripped bare) sport human limbs. Old Woman might be Native American; the only other completely human figure is a pale-skinned girl.
Though usually cast as the trickster, Coyote is more victim than victimizer, making this a nice complement to other Coyote tales. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-55498-833-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
In a large, handsome format, Tarnowska offers six tales plus an abbreviated version of the frame story, retold in formal but contemporary language and sandwiched between a note on the Nights’ place in her childhood in Lebanon and a page of glossary and source notes. Rather than preserve the traditional embedded structure and cliffhanger cutoffs, she keeps each story discrete and tones down the sex and violence. This structure begs the question of why Shahriyar lets Shahrazade [sic] live if she tells each evening’s tale complete, but it serves to simplify the reading for those who want just one tale at a time. Only the opener, “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” is likely to be familiar to young readers; in others a prince learns to control a flying “Ebony Horse” by “twiddling” its ears, contending djinn argue whether “Prince Kamar el Zaman [or] Princess Boudour” is the more beautiful (the prince wins) and in a Cinderella tale a “Diamond Anklet” subs for the glass slipper. Hénaff’s stylized scenes of domed cityscapes and turbaned figures add properly whimsical visual notes to this short but animated gathering. (Folktales. 10-12)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84686-122-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
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