THE SONGS OF BIRDS

Palin's big, crisply drawn, vibrantly colored avian portraits intensify the impact of these moving, hilarious, thoughtful poems and folktales. Drawing from traditions worldwide, storyteller Lupton alternates nine retold creation myths, trickster tales, and pourquoi stories with free verse songs, carrying readers along with Pigeon and Sparrow Hawk to steal fire from the Moon (Australian), with Raven to get an all-too-close look at a whale's insides (Inuit), to hear the haunting songs of the Birds of Rhiannon, and to find out why it's not Snake's fault that Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden (Arab/Palestinian). The tone isn't always as light, and there are some passages that verge on gruesome, particularly in an Orissa (African) tribute to the vulture, and a Brazilian tale in which birds solicit human help to exact revenge on a hunter. Lupton (Tales of Wisdom and Wonder, 1998) appends learned commentary and source notes. Though children (and some older grown ups too) may struggle with the cramped typeface, the stories and pictures make a memorable combination. (notes on legends, source notes, bibliography, acknowledgements) (Folk tales/poetry. 810)