Coyote Goes Walking - Hardcover

Kindergarten-Grade 3?Coyote delightedly creates the world and then is depicted adventuring?or misadventuring?in it in these four brief tales based on stories that appear in A.L. Kroeber's Gros Ventre Myths and Tales (1976; o.p.) and Robert H. Lowie's The Assiniboine (1974, both AMS). In all three of the post-creation stories, Coyote is bested. He gets his head stuck in an elk skull, causing him to blunder painfully into the river. He tries to collect food by Woodpecker's method, but only knocks himself out. When he disrespectfully kicks a buffalo skull, the dead animal returns to life to exact vengeance on his hide. If, as Pohrt's introduction claims, Coyote "...teaches us the importance of listening, paying attention, and respecting all that surrounds us," those lessons are so embedded in the understated narratives as to be all but invisible. What is visible is the artist's mastery of subtle color and line. The animals are drawn in loving, accurate detail, fur or feathers harmonizing with their anthropomorphic actions. The landscape plays a supporting role, contributing bits of detail in rock or tree. Against the gentle earth tones, the woodpecker's brilliant crest, the deep green pine needles, or a lapis evening sky regale the discerning eye. This book is a far cry from Barry Lopez's Crow and Weasel (North Point, 1990), but it has a delicate appeal of its own.?Patricia (Dooley) Lothrop Green, St. George's School, Newport, RI
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Pohrt's (Crow and Weasel) folktale quartet presents Coyote?a figure from Native American oral traditions?in various impersonations. From the less-than-divine creator to the foiled trickster and mischievous bumbler, Coyote, shown here sporting a buffalo-hide cape?gives youngsters plenty to identify with. When curious Coyote gets his head stuck in an elk's skull inhabited by mice, they chew up his hair; he responds by calling the mice "many bad names." When Coyote ambitiously attempts to imitate the woodpecker's method for gathering food?by donning a wooden beak?"he knocked himself out and fell to the ground." Though comprised of the simplest narrative elements, these brief stories serve up fast laughs and fodder for easy reflection. The warm, earth-toned watercolors eschew slapstick in favor of more subtle humor. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.