Coyote in Love With a Star: Tales of the People
Kindergarten-Grade 2?Coyote is a trickster character found in the stories of many Native American peoples. In this tale, he leaves his home on a Potawatomi reservation on the Plains to find work in New York City. Once there, he falls in love with a star and leaves the Earth to dance with her. When he asks to return, she drops him. He lands in Central Park, making a big hole (the Reservoir), and his descendants howl at the night sky to scold her. The story is related in a natural storytelling voice. Although it is set in the modern-day city, the author retains Coyote's traditional characteristics, adding a nice touch and exhibiting an ability to combine older customs with present-day life. The colorful drawings have a childlike quality; they reinforce the humor of the tale and the sense of place. The book concludes with several pages (including the back endpapers) of photographs and information and notes on trickster characters. However, while the section describing the Potawatomi people is interesting, it is very brief and several of the archival photographs do not seem to have a direct connection to this particular book. An additional pourquoi tale.?Darcy Schild, Schwegler Elementary School, Lawrence, KSCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.