1. Raven: A Trickster Tale From the Pacific Northwest, Author/Illustrator McDermott, Gerald, Published by Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993, ISBN- 0-15-265661-8, Multicultural, Caldecott Honor Book, Reading Level- 2.8, Interest Level- K-2
This book is a traditional story about a bird named Raven who goes on a search for light after he realizes that the entire world is dark and cold. The only source of light that Raven saw was near the edge of the water. He followed the light to its original source which happened to be the home of the Sky Chief. Raven saw the Sky Chief’s daughter down by the water’s edge drinking a bowl full of the clear water. Raven transformed himself into a pine needle and floated into her bowl. She drank him up with the water and he then turned into a baby inside of the Sky Chief’s daughter. Upon the Raven child’s birth he was loved and treated very well by the Sky Chief, his daughter, and all of his court. Raven tricked the Sky Chief into letting him play with the box that the light was coming from and once raven got to the center of the box he saw the sun. Raven transformed back into a bird and flew away with the sun placing it high in the sky and that is why the sun is high in the sky.
This story reflects culture and helps to show students the beliefs of the Pacific Northwest people. The story is used to explain how the sun got placed in the sky. Many different cultures have stories and tales that explain how things in nature came to be. These stories help to represent how different people think about life and the creation of the world. I think that this is a neat story and would work well in helping to explain folktales to my students.
I would use this book in my classroom when discussing different cultures and the folktales and stories that people use to help explain the world around them. I would then have students to think about any folk tales that they have heard from their older family members or elderly people they know. We would then compare Ravens tale with those they have been told firsthand.
2. True Friends: A tale from Tanzania, Author/ Illustrator- Kilaka, John, Traditional, Published by Groundwood Books, 2006, ISBN-13 978-0-88899-698-5, Multicultural, Reading Level- 3.3
This book is a traditional story that teaches a lesson about friendship and how important trust and honesty are in relationships. At the beginning of the story Rat and Elephant are the best of friends. Rat is the smallest animal in the village, but he is very smart and hardworking. Rat is the only animal in the village that can start a fire. Elephant, on the other hand, likes to take it easy and relax. When famine comes, Rat has plenty of food to survive. However, Elephant doesn’t have any, so he tells Rat he will protect his food for him when he really is planning to eat it. Rat is very hurt by the fact that Elephant betrayed him and he runs away from the village. He is gone for quite awhile and all the animals in the village, especially Elephant, are scared that he will return and use his skill of making fire to burn down Elephant’s house. Eventually, Rat gets lonely and returns to the village, but when he does Elephant is nowhere to be found. He has left the village to go look for Rat. At the end of the story the two are reunited and Elephant apologizes for the way he treated Rat and they become friends once again.
This story shows culture through the illustrations. The animals in the village have grass huts as their homes and the ground is covered with dirt. There isn’t much green vegetation shown through the pictures at all. This shows the difference in climate that exists between Tanzania and here in the United State. I think that the lessons taught in this book would be good to use in the classroom. However, one of the images shows the Elephant getting a shot in the butt and I don’t really think that the students in my class would respond to well too this image so I probably would choose to use it and if I did I would skip this page.
I could use this book in my classroom to teach my students that everyone has talents, from the strongest kid to the smallest; everyone is important to the class and has something valuable to offer. This book also teaches the importance of friendship and some of the character traits that one should exhibit in order to be trusted by others. In my classroom I could have my students to make a list of character traits that each animal in this book possesses and explain how they either help or harm the character throughout the story. This would be a good book to tie in with Character Education.
3. The First Strawberries: A Cherokee Story, Author/Retold by Bruchac, Joseph, Illustrator Vojtech, Anna, Traditional, Published by Dial Books for Young Readers, 1993, ISBN-0-8031-1331-2, Multicultural, Reading Level- 3.5, Interest Level= K-2
This book starts out with the Creator making a man and woman and placing them on the earth to be together so they could live happily. The man and woman lived together for a long time and were very happy but one day the man came home from fishing and his wife had not prepared his dinner, instead she was picking flowers. The husband became very upset and began to fuss at her. The woman decided that she didn’t have to listen to him and began walking. Her husband tried to catch her but she was too quick and he wasn’t fast enough. He asked the sun to help him catch his wife and the sun did. The sun created may different kinds of berries in front of the woman along her way to slow her down, but she just ignored them. However, when the sun placed a strawberry patch at her feet she wasn’t able to resist them and stopped to pick the wonderful berries. As she was picking them her husband caught up to her and apologized. He was very sorry for what he had done and she forgave him as they ate the sweet strawberries together. To this day the Cherokee people still believe that this is how the first strawberries came to be.
I think that this is a good story to use to show how different cultures believe different things came into existence. The outline and concepts of this story reminds me of Raven: A Trickster Tale From the Pacific Northwest. In my classroom I could use these two stories comparing the different ways that both stories explain how something in nature formed and have my students to fill in Venn Diagrams of the similarities and differences. It also reminded me of the story of Adam and Eve in the very beginning when it was talking about the Creator making a man and woman for each other.
