Sky Dogs

Grade 1-5-- Many legends reflect the radical difference the advent of the horse made in the life of the Plains Indians. In fluid storytelling style, Yolen melds the mythic and the realistic modes in the emotions and reactions of her narrator, a motherless Piegan boy, on the day the first "sky dogs" come to his band. Fear and disbelief are tempered by wonder and gratitude . The horse brings the hero a substitute mother and status in the tribe, as it would bring success to all the Plains people. Goble's retelling in The Gift of the Sacred Dog (Bradbury , 1984) emphasizes the legendary over the realistic, and his slick, flat, brightly colored illustrations are the antithesis of Moser's. Moser's palette is all ochre, yellow, and umber, red earth and golden sky. Against the low horizon and dry prairie, humans and horses loom, at once significant and insignificant. Two portrait roundels are as revealing and moving as Catlin's or Bodmer's 19th-century "noble savages." Writer and artist together have produced a fine evocation of a place and a people. --Patricia Dooley, University of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this lyrical tale drawn from Blackfoot legend, an old man recounts the origin of his name, He-who-loves-horses. He describes the coming of horses, "Sky Dogs," from across the plains, and the wonder and awe he and his people felt when they first saw these "big . . .elk, with tails of straw." He-who-loves-horses, then a lonely boy, learns to care for and ride the beautiful animals, and his knowledge and abilities help him earn a place on the council of warriors--and a sense of self-worth. His story is made all the more poignant by the elderly narrator's revelation that "now I sit in the tipi, and food is brought to me, and I do not ride the wind." Moser's sun-and-earth-toned watercolors, of the plains and of the main character as both boy and man, are lovely and haunting. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.