This was really an awesome story. I enjoyed reading it and I think it would be good for read-aloud and to incorporate into a history lesson. ( )

Abenaki storyteller and children's author Joseph Bruchac - who has explored a seemingly endless variety of genres in his writing, from intermediate horror novels like Skeleton Man, to picture-book biographies such as Crazy Horse's Vision - presents six traditional Iroquois folktales in this engaging collection, related to him over the years by Iroquois elders. Accompanied by the appealing illustrations of Murv Jacob, who is probably best known for his work on Deborah L. Duvall's series, The Grandmother Stories (The Great Ball Game of the Birds and Animals, How Rabbit Lost His Tail, etc.), these tales are both entertaining and instructive - sure to please folklore lovers young and old.

Here is the story of Rabbit and Fox, in which the clever Rabbit continuously outwits his would-be hunter, eventually tricking him into eating a rotten log. In the titular The Boy Who Lived with the Bears, a hunter who "did not have a straight mind," leaves his nephew to die in a blocked-up cave, but is subsequently reunited with him, when he is rescued by the animals of the forest, and adopted by a mother bear. How the Birds Got Their Feathers relates the tale of Buzzard, who undertakes the arduous journey to the Skyland, in order to bring back the clothing promised to the birds by the Creator, only to find himself stuck with the least desirable "suit," because he cannot be satisfied.

The humorous Turtle Makes War On Man follows three "warriors" - Turtle, Skunk and Snake - as they set out to attack an Iroquois village, only to find that the women of the village are more than a match for them. Chipmunk and Bear, in which Bear is convinced he can do anything, and Chipmunk asks him whether he can prevent the sun from rising, is a cautionary tale intended to warn the reader/listener not to tease others, and has also been retold by Bruchac in picture-book format, as How Chipmunk Got His Stripes. Finally, Rabbit's Snow Dance relates the story of Rabbit, who discovers that a little bit of a good thing is sometimes enough, when his Snow Dance brings him more than he expected. ( )