Raven Gets Tricked (Coast Salish Tales)

Written and illustrated by Andrea Fritz

Orca Book Publishers

978-1459836273

32 pp.

Ages 6-8

September 2024

 

Andrea Fritz of the Lyackson First Nation brings us a new story for her Coast Salish Tales series, continuing to connect young readers to the teachings of the Coast Salish peoples through storytelling. 

It's winter and Smuy (little deer in the Hul'q'umi'num' language) finds his food stores empty except for some berries. When he realizes that he always shares with his cousin Spaal' (raven) who never reciprocates but often tricks Smuy instead, Smuy concocts a plan.

From Raven Gets Tricked, written and illustrated by Andrea Fritz

Smuy's plan begins with mashing up his remaining berries and pouring them out onto the snow beneath Spaal's tree. When Spaal' sees the red snow and asks Smuy to share it, Smuy does so. But Spaal' needed more space for this wonderful red snow so deposits his dried salmon and leaves it on the beach. While Spaal' continues to help himself to the red snow and even trying to hide that he'd taken more than his share, Smuy helps himself to the discarded salmon. 

Back after a night near Spaal's fire, all the red snow melts and floods his house. Smuy kindly takes Spaal' to his house and feeds him salmon, and even gives him some to take home as all his food is now gone. (At least Spaal' thanks Smuy with "Huy ch q'u!")

From Raven Gets Tricked, written and illustrated by Andrea Fritz

Between the art and the story, Andrea Fritz teaches, entertains, and delights with Raven Gets Tricked. The story has much to say about greed and sharing, self-sufficiency and helping others. It never occurs to Spaal', the raven who is known as a trickster, that he should think of others. He wants what he wants, never sharing–except when tricked into it–but always wanting from others, never wondering if they need something more than he. He asks, he takes, and he holds. Smuy, on the other hand, needs food. Whether his stores were always inadequate or because he shared with others or whether someone like Spaal' stole from him is irrelevant. I don't know why he didn't just ask but I suspect he knew that Spaal' would have many excuses not to share. Regardless, Andrea Fritz has created two very different characters. She makes Spaal' the selfish and manipulative creature upon whom misfortune occurs because of his own greed and Smuy, the kind animal who is compelled to reciprocate trickery but still shows goodness to help another.

From Raven Gets Tricked, written and illustrated by Andrea Fritz

Andrea Fritz even differentiates the two animals in the style of her art. Using a lovely and generously emotive Woodland style of art, Andrea Fritz gives Smuy a softness while Spaal' is somewhat sharper in shape and line. Of course, with a beak and talons, there is more sharpness to a raven, but the little deer looks lithe and muscular and still delicate. Moreover, Andrea Fritz's illustrations take us beyond the two characters, placing us in a northern environment of coniferous trees, laden with snow, purple and blue waters, and wooden plank houses. (The grain of the wood is reflected in many surfaces, from water and beach to sky and land.)

The story in Raven Gets Tricked offers a lesson in sharing but Andrea Fritz takes that teaching a step further by appending it with a discussion of Coastal Salish Plank Houses. She shares her personal experiences of building plank houses and even moving them to foraging grounds in the summer. Along with time spent in the houses, there is discussion about sharing and trading with local Nations.

Spuy may have to trick Spaal' in order to get food to survive but the little deer still does it with kindness and generosity, a lesson Spaal' should have learned.

 

• • • • • • •

 

Coast Salish Tales by Andrea Fritz

Otter Doesn't Know (2023)

Crow Helps a Friend (2024)

Raven Gets Tricked (2024)

Woolly Dog Warms His Family (expected 2025 or 2026)

The Owl and the Lemming

by Roselynn Akulukjuk

Illustrated by Amanda Sandland

Inhabit Media

978-1-77227-120-1

32 pp.

Ages 5-7

November 2016

Like Aesop’s Fables, The Owl and the Lemming is a tale with a moral but it is more than just a morality story. Through the words of Nunavut-born filmmaker Roselynn Akulukjuk and illustrator Amanda Sandland, this fable is an Inuit legend with a lesson based on a local predator-prey relationship amidst that Arctic ambience of mossy and rocky tundra.  The Owl and the Lemming is as elegant in its story-telling and art as it is wise in its teaching.

A young lemming makes her way out of the den in the spring to partake in some much-needed feeding on tasty moss.  So engrossed in her eating, she fails to notice a snowy owl land directly in front of the entrance to the lemming’s den.   The young lemming tries to trick the snowy owl with some juvenile ploys based on distraction but, though young, the owl is wise to her intentions. Finally the lemming invites the owl to play a jumping game with the lemming’s fate as a meal the prize.  The owl is only too happy to show his prowess at jumping, sadly for him allowing the lemming to scurry back into her den.  Though his father cautions him, “Next time, don’t play with your food” (pg. 25), the little owl knows it was his pride that cost him his meal.

That old adage of pride going before a fall is ever so true in this Inuit tale, told with humour by Roselynn Akulukjuk who directed a puppet-based film of the story for Taqqut Productions, just winning Best Animation at the 41st annual American Indian Film Institute Festival.  It’s an auspicious recognition of the talent of Roselynn Akulukjuk to tell such a legend with both clarity and richness, staying true to her Nunavut roots while extending herself into her new pathways for story-telling.  Similarly, Amanda Sandland uses her artwork to combine the whimsical with the realistic, creating composite images of drawings with photographic backgrounds.  With only a few touches of comic design, like the den’s doorway and fencing, added to the true tundra landscape, Amanda Sandland puts all her efforts in creating a lemming and an owl worthy of the legend’s title.

From The Owl and the Lemming 

by Roselynn Akulukjuk, 

illus. by Amanda Sandland

Readers should look for the release of Taqqut Productions’s film of this story, but indulge in this literary version from Inhabit Media for teaching and learning an important moral about pride and survival from a very northern perspective.