Voices of the Winds: Native American Legends
Margot Edmonds & Ella E. Clarke
Barnes & Noble
Nonfiction, Folklore
Themes: Diversity, Fables
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Description
From the Northeastern woodlands to the Southwestern deserts, from the Florida everglades to the Puget Sound, and even as far as the Hawaiian Islands, there once lived countless cultures before the coming of the Europeans. Now little remains of those cultures, but this collection of legends shows that their beliefs and wisdom have not all died.
Review
It's not easy to review a book like this. Several of these stories lose something simply by being translated, not just into another language but another culture and age. In the end, I went with four stars, because it wasn't as boring as the average Okay/three-star book. It's not a comprehensive, all-inclusive guide to North American Native legends, but it doesn't set out to be one. As for the legends themselves, they proved to be a mixed bag. Some stories felt more complete than others. The pre-legend explanatory text by the authors sometimes felt out of date, especially when growing evidence indicates that there was contact with European culture long before the 1400's and that our current conceptions of how humans spread across the continent may be faulty. Considering that I found it for a deeply discounted price, I got my money's worth of enjoyment out of it, though I'd hesitate to consider it a definitive authority.