WHEN BEAR STOLE THE CHINOOK: A Siksika Tale

As this Siksika (formerly known as Blackfoot) tale has it, when news that Bear has stolen the long-awaited chinook to keep warm, an orphan boy sets out with several animal friends to free it. Taylor (Brother Wolf, 1996) illustrates her brief, easy-reading retelling with accomplished pictorial batiks that, in their stylized forms and carefully detailed tepees, patterns, and articles of, dress, recall Paul Goble's art. Aside from some gaps in logic (pipe smoke makes Bear sleepy for some unexplained reason, and, as if bears can't swim, the boy and his helpers make their escape over a stream's thinning ice), this makes a well-knit, handsomely turned out adventure. Explanatory note and source list appended.