Grade 2-5-- Trickster coyote (Ma'ii) freeloads from his cousin Horned Toad, and rather than work off his debt, he ungratefully swallows the toad whole. Too late he realizes that he is a parasite's host himself. The latter half of the story details Ma'ii's unavailing efforts to eject toad (some of them quite painful to the coyote). Finally, toad wreaks havoc on Ma'ii's insides, then exits, leaving a coyote who never again bothers a horned toad. A note explains that the Navajo call the horned toad ``grandfather,'' and believe that it gives strength of heart and mind. Begay's light-spattered watercolors depict the animals relatively realistically, with expression but little anthropomorphism. Coyote is doglike rather than menacing or wily, but Horned Toad looks too much like an alien. (The pictograph on the title page is more successful.) The colors are soft but not washed out; as in Cohen's Mud Pony (Scholastic, 1988), also illustrated by Begay, the dappled pages suggest a mythic setting. The moral of this tale is a good one, although taught in a harsh lesson. --Patricia Dooley, University of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Coyote, the trickster of Native American legend, gets his comeuppance in this strikingly illustrated and humorous morality tale. Coyote, or Ma'ii, visits his cousin Horned Toad and decides to take advantage of his hospitality. Stuffed with roast corn and squash stew, Coyote is too lazy to help tend the crops but wants the farm anyway. He tricks his cousin into climbing into his mouth, then swallows him. Horned Toad, however, swiftly proves that he who tricks last, tricks best. Begay (illustrator of The Mud Pony ) seasons his forceful language with spontaneous songs and Navajo phrases. Faintly drawn lines pull the eye to the focal points of his boldly colored, dynamic full-spread illustrations, which, like the text, pay equal tribute to the charming rogue Coyote and his earnest but resourceful cousin. Ages 4-7.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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