Southwest Children's Literature

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Forbidden Talent

Book Review:

Mr. Nez himself came up with the story and gorgeous illustrations. Kathryn Wilder edited the story as Redwing told it to her. Redwing has created some intense, life-like, and textured pictures. He uses natural tones and each page looks as if they are painted on actual canvas. This beautiful book is about a young Apache boy and his overwhelming desire to paint pictures.

The boy named Ashkii lives with his grandparents on their sheep farm on the Navajo Reservation. He helps his elders by tending sheep and helping around the house. Ashkii gains an interest in painting pictures while attending the nearby government school. His grandfather makes sand paintings and is teaching Ashkii how make them as well. His grandfather continually stresses that "painting for fun and frolic is forbidden." Ashkii learns how to mix natural colors with sand and how to make straight lines. He is taught that the colors he uses stand for the four directions of Mother Earth. Ashkii makes a sand painting of some of the things he saw at school and proudly shows it to his grandfather. Grandfather looks at the painting and says, "That is not the Navajo Way." He informs Ashkii that prayer must go along with painting, and it must be used to help sick people. Ashkii continues to draw pictures without Grandfather's approval. He contrives some funny ways to draw and hide his pictures.

In the end, Ashkii's infatuation with painting causes him to draw on the local watering tank. He feels he is making pictures like "the Ancient Ones" made on the rocks. On his way home, he looks back and sees that everyone will be able to see those pictures, even Grandfather. If you want to know how it turns out, just look for the colors of the painting, sparkling in Grandfather's eyes.

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