THE GREAT CANOE: A Karia Legend
Maria Elena Maggi, , illus. by Gloria Calderón, trans. by Elisa Amado. . Groundwood, $15.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-88899-444-8
Calderon's intricately textured woodcuts enliven a Kariña (an indigenous people who occupied eastern Venezuela on the Orinoco River) version of the Great Flood. Here, the "Sky Dweller" Kaputano prophesies the dreadful storm. Most of his listeners ridicule his predictions, but four couples join Kaputano in building a giant thatch-roofed canoe, filling it with "two of each kind of animal" and "a seed from each kind of plant." Unlike the dutiful Noah and his family, Kaputano's passengers complain about the barren world that remains after the floodwaters recede. "Where are the groves of palms whose leaves we weave into baskets and roofs? Where are the mountains on whose slopes we grow food?" Kaputano obliges his people with abundance, and the story ends happily with a moonlit dance. Calderon's (
Reviewed on: 09/17/2001
Genre: Children's