Trickster: Native American Tales, A Graphic Collection, 10th Anniversary Edition

by Matt Dembicki (Editor), Joseph Bruchac (Introduction)

Overview

2010 Maverick Award winner, 2011 Aesop Prize Winner—Children’s folklore section, and a 2011 Eisner Award Nominee. All cultures have tales of the trickster—a crafty creature or being who uses cunning to get food, steal precious possessions, or simply cause mischief. He disrupts the order of things, often humiliating others and sometimes himself. In Native American traditions, the trickster takes many forms, from coyote or rabbit to raccoon or raven. The first graphic anthology of Native American trickster tales, Trickster brings together Native American folklore and the world of comics. In Trickster, 24 Native storytellers were paired with 24 comic artists, telling cultural tales from across America. Ranging from serious and dramatic to funny and sometimes downright fiendish, these tales bring tricksters back into popular culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781682752739
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	05/03/2021
Edition description:	Second edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	HL730L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Matt Dembicki previously edited and contributed to the Eisner-nominated and Aesop Prize-winning Trickster: Native American Tales: A Graphic Collection. 

Joseph Bruchac is the award-winning author of Breaking Silence and the Keepers of the Earth series. He lives in New York. Find more at josephbruchac.com.

Editorial Reviews

2021-03-31
Twenty-three comics show how natural phenomena from the stars to buzzards have been affected by tricksters.

The 10th-anniversary reissue of this compilation, which features an introduction to trickster tales by Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki), contains traditional stories from across Canada and the U.S. retold by Indigenous authors and illustrated by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists. An editor’s note explains that each author chose the artist who would illustrate their story and approved their work. Bruchac’s introduction describes how the stories serve a dual purpose, both entertaining and educating listeners and readers. Many are of the pourquoi tale type, offering etiological narratives, such as “Rabbit’s Choctaw Tail Tale” by Tim Tingle, illustrated by Pat Lewis, which explains why rabbits have short tails. The Catawba story “The Yehasuri: The Little Wild Indians” by Beckee Garris, illustrated by Andrew Cohen, tells readers about mischievous beings who trouble travelers and punish naughty children. The stories vary in length, but most are in the range of 10 pages. The full-color artwork varies dramatically in style and quality; some is exceptionally skillful, making creative use of layout and panels, while other is more static. The range of nations represented is a strength of the work, offering readers a glimpse into both common elements of trickster characters and the sheer diversity of such stories.

A colorful collection of Native American and First Nations trickster tales. (contributor biographies) (Graphic anthology. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews