This mid-eighties collection from Joseph Bruchac - one of my favorite folktale interpreters and children's authors - builds on some of his earlier work, reprinting selections from titles such as Stone Giants and Flying Heads: Adventure Stories of the Iroquois and Turkey Brother, and Other Tales: Iroquois Folk Stories; and has been used, in turn, as a source for subsequent titles, like The Boy Who Lived with the Bears And Other Iroquois Stories, and the picture-book, How Chipmunk Got His Stripes. Anyone who knows Bruchac's work, or who has read much Iroquois folklore, will recognize almost all of these tales (as I did), and feel a welcome sense of familiarity, when paging through them.

Here are old favorites, like the humorous Turtle Makes War on Men, in which Turtle, Skunk and Rattlesnake find that their attack against an Iroquois village does not go as planned, to the frightening The Dogs Who Saved Their Master, in which a hunter flees through the night from a terrible monster, urged on by his faithful dogs, who sacrifice themselves for him. The Iroquois creation story, in which a woman falls from the sky, landing upon and transforming the back of a great turtle, is here. So too are the tales of flying heads and stone giants, trickster foxes and trickster rabbits (and trickster rabbits who trick foxes), and brave men and women who persevere, even when the way is difficult.

Entertaining and educational, frightening and heart-warming, these stories have something for everyone, and will delight readers young and old. Bruchac's telling is natural and engaging, drawing the reader into the longhouse created by his narrator. The accompanying black and white illustrations by Daniel Burgevin, whose work I had not encountered before, complement the tales admirably. In short: this is a wonderful collection of tales, one I would not hesitate to recommend to any reader with an interest in folklore, the Iroquois, or both! ( )

$12.95