Coyote: A Trickster Tale from the American Southwest

Very talented Caldecott winner brings this colorful tale to life with his great stories and well-told narrative.

It's sad. I spent this book feeling rather bad for the poor ickle coyote, and I suppose that the trickster aspect of the story comes from the pesky birds. Still, it's extremely entertaining. McDemortt's storytelling and rich illustrations bring to life yet another old legend--this time to explain the nature of that old favorite, the coyote. My class loved the pictures and loved hearing of Coyote's escapades (the guy cannot keep out of trouble!) Plus, the story teaches great lessons about being yourself and minding your own business. Poor, poor Coyote.

"Them that takes cakes Which the Parsee-man bakes Makes dreadful mistakes." R. Kipling As a child I learned many things from Mr Kipling about how to (and not to) behave in this world. I adored those tales and lessons. A few months ago my son chose Coyote on an outing to the local bookstore. He and I thoroughly enjoyed learning vicariously through Coyote. In fact, Coyote quickly became his most requested book. Last week as we were driving we saw a beautiful coyote dodge across the road. "Doggie!" my son announced proudly. "Coyote!" I corrected. It took a minute to figure out the rest of the resulting monologue but I quickly gathered that my soon was thrilled to see that Coyote's tail was indeed burnt black as pitch from his fall. Excellent graphics, clever story. 5 stars.

My son ([...] years old) enjoys a lot this funny story about the silliness of the coyote and the tricky birds. We read it often and have a little song for the dancing of the craws. The design makes it easy for children eyes to understand the story without words. Another lovely book from Gerald McDermott, but not as good as Zomo The Rabbit or Papagayo. These are really great!!

I like it because when the Coyote meets some birds he wants to fly with, all the birds give him one of their right feathers, but he didn't balance. So they each gave him left feathers, but he still didn't balance. And the reason he didn't balance was because he needed one left feather and one right feather. - AMD, Age 7.