Jamie Oliviero

Richly illustrated , The Fish Skin is a tale about the Cree. The Cree is a Native American tribe that believes that the universe is a circle and everything follows cycles and has equal importance. I’m the book things in nature such as the sun and clouds are personified making sense of people communicating with them. One day the tribe complained about clouds and rain and wished only the sun would shine. The Cloud disappeared as Grandfather Sun baked the camp of the Cree. All the inhabitants almost died from the drought but a young boy went into the woods to seek help from Wísahkecàhk. He told the great spirit that the Cree learned their lesson and promised to value the clouds as much as the sun , Wísahkecàhk gave the young boy the power to restore the clouds and rain to his people since they learned from their mistake. Now the people of Cree will always value all weather as it maintains balance.… (mere)

Oliviero, Jamie. The Day Sun was Stolen. (1995). New York. Hyperion Books for Children.

This is a retelling of a legend of the Haida oral tradition. It takes place at the beginning of time when Raven creates all the animals. Bear ends up with a coat of hair twice as thick as any of the other animals. This makes him very how and uncomfortable when the Shun shines. He captures the Sun and pits it in a cave. The world becomes cold and dark and the other animals suffer. A young boy, Ts’ina dabiu, tricks Bear and shaves half his hair off. Bear gets cold and takes the Sun out and tosses it into the sky. He’s not too warm in summer but since he gets cold in winter now, he goes into his cave and sleeps all winter. The other animals collect his shaved hair and add it to their own coats. This is how it came to be that bears sleep and some animals grow thicker hair in winter.

Young elementary students will like this book. The story is very simple and easy to understand. The illustrations are also simple, with some detail but not a great deal. Only 3 or 4 colors are used on one illustration. What makes this book unique is that a Haida artist, Sharon Hitchcock, illustrated it. She used the same artistic traditions Haida people use in creating totem poles. The endsheets of the book have drawings of totem poles depicting Raven and Bear, there is a note explaining the symbolism of the totems.… (mere)