I had purchased a paperback copy of Scott McDermott's Caldecott Honour winning Raven from Amazon a couple of years ago, mostly because I happened to find the cover image so visually appealing and stunning (and have always enjoyed folktale adaptations). I did enjoy the book for the story it told. The kids knew none of this and they thought the book was great. I like the idea, "Politicians use lies to hide the truth, while storytellers use lies to tell the truth." Was that Mark Twain? not sure. People are ultimately storytellers and we learn from stories. Science has it's own beauty and I'm glad we know so much more than we did, but I like the piece that a myth fills in my spirit. I still feel myths are important for our spirits. It's not that I think the myths happened, it's the truth they tell with the knowledge they had still has power in our psyche and imagination. The idea behind them is interesting to me. For me, the myths still have a power in them. Science is now capable of explaining how all this works and it is important to know that. Myths were used to explain phenomenon in life.
The myths have many tellings and this is one more. I would also like to read the myth from someone who grew up with these stories as kids. I think I can see this story as this is Gerald's version of the myth of the Pacific Northwest peoples. I don't know, well, I know it's not fair to the Native people's and they need to tell their stories and at the same time anyone is able to retell a story. Still, if the minority race doesn't have an opportunity to tell their story, is that fair either. I'm really getting into Chinese myths right now. Then again, do myths really belong to the culture they were written in, or are they the property of the world? I'm not really Greek and I love the Greek myths. Is this cultural appropriation? Gerald is an amazing artist, could he not find someone from a Native tribe to tell this story with him as it's their story. I do feel it's a good story and the artwork is beautiful and stylized. I was going to give it 4 stars and after reading Manybooks, I don't think I can for now.
I admit to not knowing who Gerald really was or much about the Raven history in stories. I read Manybooks review (it's a review worth reading - it's very good!) about this book before I did my review.
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