Prompted by his young son's distress at the continued cold, Ojeeg the fisher sets out - together with his friends Otter, Beaver, Lynx and Wolverine - to find Summer, and bring it to the world. Climbing the high mountains, the companions come to the home of a powerful spirit known as a manitou, who advises them on their quest, pointing them to the mountaintop where they can break into the land above the sky. It is here that they find the birds of Summer, and set them free. But everything has its price, and Ojeeg finds himself stranded in the sky, far from home...

Co-workers and co-authors Margery Bernstein and Janet Kobrin - two primary school teachers who collaborated on a number of folktale retellings, including How the Sun Made a Promise and Kept It and The First Morning: An African Myth - turn their attention here to the Ojibwe tradition. The narrative of The Summer Maker flows well, being simple enough for younger children, but engaging enough for older. I did find myself (as I so often do) wishing for some sort of attribution, or mention of source, on the authors' part.

Anne Burgess' black and white illustrations are delightful - the snow-encrusted lynx is particularly amusing - with wonderfully expressive faces on all the animals. It's a rather odd choice, on Burgess' part, putting a bookcase full of the works of western literature (Pliny, Homer, Ovid) in the home of a manitou, but if you can look past that, her artwork is charming. ( )