The People with Five Fingers

As in their The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, Bierhorst and Parker tell a creation story from Native American folklore. Here Bierhorst combs the shared oral traditions of the peoples of what is now California. Coyote creates the world, with the help of other animals. For example, when Coyote decides that the people he will create are to live in valleys and mountains, the ""Gopher brothers"" kick earth ""down from the north"" to make mountains. Coyote decides that the people will have round hands like his, but Lizard wants them to be able to make baskets, so she uses her own five-fingered hands as models. The language is spare, at times too much so. For instance, children will likely have trouble grasping that the following quote describes the creation of humans: ""Coyote pulled out pairs of figures as big as tiny seeds. All over the land he planted them."" Parker, on the other hand, makes a virtue of economy. His ink-and-watercolor illustrations are deceptively sketchy, almost rough, as if they, like the world Bierhorst envisions, were still coming into being. Ages 5-8. (Mar.)