Moon Mother: A Native American Creation Tale SIGNED by Ed Young

A retelling of a traditional native American tale in which the Spirit that made animals and people falls in love with a Woman Spirit who becomes the moon he carries through the sky every night

The Caldecott Medalist's eloquent, impressionistic artistry lights up the pages of this Native American creation tale. The story begins when the earth is young; a place of great beauty, it is devoid of animals or men. A spirit person arrives and creates living creatures for companions, but one day he spies a woman of his own kind and returns to the spirit world with her (she becomes the moon). As a gift, the pair leave behind a newborn girl, who eventually marries the chief, and from this union comes the human race. Young's poetic text speaks to the Native American reverence for the connection between humans and the natural world; here, the "moon mother" is a central figure in the eternal cycle of life. A baby cries at birth "because he has left the moon-land and has lost his moon mother," and death comes for the aged when the moon mother turns her face away. The strength of Young's haunting art is its subtlety: his softly shaded pastels always suggest rather than delineate. A young woman's face, upturned to the morning light, reveals her love for her mate; the graceful line of hills on the horizon hint at a figure in final repose. A worthy addition both to a general folktale collection and to a specific round-up of creation myths. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In a lovely creation tale (drawn from Charles E. S. Wood's 1901 collection of ``Myths of the North American Indians''; not attributed to any tribe), plants come first, with no one to eat their fruits until a lonely ``spirit person'' makes animals, then ``images of himself.'' Since the men are hunters, he gives the animals defenses (most effective is the skunk's). Then the spirit person finds a woman spirit and leaves the men, who quarrel among themselves until one brave chief follows after the spirit people. He learns that they have become the sun and moon, but they've left a gift: a baby--``changeful as the moon''--who grows up to become the first woman. The myth is retold with admirable grace and simplicity. Young's full-bleed art, rendered in pastels, is vibrant with sumptuous color; the dazzling, sunstruck mist of early dawn is especially arresting, and the elemental, cloudlike forms truly bespeak a universal beginning. (Picture book. 4-8) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Gr. 4-6, younger for reading aloud. Lonely with only animals for company, a man spirit "made images of himself, and warmed them and made them alive; and this is how men came to be." One day, a woman spirit came to live on the shore of the lake. Because she was his own kind, the man spirit spent all his time with her. Feeling neglected, the men quarreled among themselves and decided to go to the house of the spirits. The spirits were gone, but they left behind a gift--a newborn baby girl. "The chief took the baby to his house, and all the men waited upon her," and from the union between the gift-child grown to womanhood and the chief came the people. Ed Young's pastel illustrations have a soothing clarity that lends itself nicely to this retelling. Images within images add visual layers of meaning to the complex creation myth, which Young tells with deceptive simplicity. Although no specific tribal affiliation is given, Young provides a complete bibliographic citation for the source of his telling. Janice Del Negro