raven a trickster tale from the pacific northwest

One thing that really bothered me was the italic questions within the writing that questions the reader. There is a nice rhythm to the text in this book as well. Each come to that conclusion in a funny way that I am curious is just an element of tribal origin tales or if that is a facet of McDermott's writing. Also the transition between the form of the baby boy raven and the true raven was pretty creepy! It was fun to read the story of Anansi though, which ends with the origin of the moon and then to read this one next which tells of the origin of the sun.

I found the imagery of the raven versus the soft water color that made up the rest of the illustrations quite jarring. This book I did not find as impressive as Anansi The Spider. I really enjoy the forwards in McDermott's books, it is nice to preface a story with some information so the reader is not lost or caught up in why its a raven as a main character or where the setting is. Once Raven engages with the humans, their world takes on more color and once Raven brings the sun, the world is illuminated as well. The art is simple but poignant, with vivid colors reserved for Raven while everything else is in muted colors, representing the lack of light or enlightenment. This origin story shares many similarities with other origin stories such as Maui, Prometheus and even Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. Raven steals the run, turns back into a bird and flies into the sky where he throws the sun for all to enjoy. Sky Chief is enamored with Raven and gives Raven whatever he wants, including a shining box which ends up housing the sun. Later on, the girl becomes pregnant and gives birth to Raven. Being the trickster that he is, Raven see a girl drinking water from bowl then Raven changes himself into a pine needle and positions himself to be scooped up into the bowl where the girl then drinks the Raven/pine-needle. Desiring to change this, Raven goes in search of light and finds it at the Sky Chief's lodge. The world exists in darkness and Raven is sad for the people.

Raven is part Pourqui tale and part trickster tale as it explains how light was brought to the world and it demonstrates the sly wisdom of the raven.

Raven a trickster tale from the pacific northwest