Bones in the Basket

Kelly L. Green is the co-editor of the Children’s Literature edition
of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

Hot on the heels of How We Saw the World, her collection of Native
legends about the ways things (e.g., horses and tornadoes) came to be,
C.J. Taylor takes us one step further in her latest book. Also a
collection of legends (as opposed to her earlier books, which retold and
illustrated a single story), Bones in the Basket re-creates the creation
legends of seven Native peoples.

Once again, Taylor has been careful to select stories that vividly
illustrate the widely variant cosmologies of tribes ranging from the
Chuckchee of northeastern Siberia to the Zuсi of the southwestern
United States, while emphasizing each people’s connection to the
earth, nature, and all living things. The legends captivate with their
beauty and psychological resonance. In a legend from the Mandan people
of the American Midwest, human beings originally lived underground,
until they found their way to the light and warmth of the earth’s
surface. In the book’s title legend, from the Modoc people of the
Pacific Coast, the Creator carries a basket of bones from the spirit
world to the earth, and convinces the spirits to transform their bones
into people who can enjoy the earth’s beauty and bounty.

As usual, Taylor’s paintings exude warmth, fire, ice, shining light,
or shadowy darkness, as each story requires. The magnitude of the
creation legends allows Taylor to give free reign to her vivid sense of
color and power. Highly recommended.