Barbara J. Atwater

How Raven Got His Crooked Nose is a confusing story about Raven loosing his nose and it being found by a woman who uses it as a tool. The raven turns himself into a human and creates sand people to scare the people out of the village so that he can find his nose. When he does it is worn and crooked, but he still puts it on. The illustrations are confusing and set up like a comic book. Combining that with the fact that the story seemed to leave out important pieces like how the raven lost his beak in the first place made the story confusing even for me as an adult. The tone of the book was cautionary but lost its impact due to the confusion. I will not be using this book in the future.

Alaskan Connection: Raven, Dena’ina, salmon, Alaskan tools
Activity: discuss the importance of patience and doing things correctly… (mehr)

Grandmother tells her granddaughter a story about Chulyen the raven in order to teach the lesson "Take your time and do things right." At first, Chulyen replaces his lost nose with some curled birch bark, but when he finds a woman, Chida, using his nose as a tool, he makes a plan to steal it back. Chulyen gets his nose back, but it has been worn down from Chida's use, and is crooked now. Dach' qidyuq. And that is what happened.

Different artistic styles are used to represent the grandmother and granddaughter (who are picking blueberries to make preserves, and catching fish) and Chulyen the raven's story-within-a-story.

Back matter includes a small map of Alaska and where Dena'ina is spoken; more about Alaskan Dena'ina stories; a Dena'ina glossary and pronunciation guide; and further reading.… (mehr)