Monster Birds
Book Review:
Monster Birds is a retelling of a Navajo folktale in which twin
brothers must save the Anasazi villages from two Monster Birds who are
preying upon their people. This book is a continuation of the story
from another of Browne's books, Monster Slayer. The twins, Child
Born of Water and Monster Slayer, are given magic feathers and lightning
arrows by their father, Sunbearer. These are to be used to help the
twins kill the Monster Birds. Upon meeting the mother giant, the boys
are swooped into the air and dropped into the nest of the bird where
they are to be used as food for her young.
With the boys' journey, the reader is given a glimpse of Navajo beliefs.
The author offers selected enriching vocabulary words from her culture.
We learn of the two types of rain, the strong and thundering Male Rain
and the gentle falling Female Rain. The tale focuses on how the mighty
eagle and the wise owl came to be. Each was originally a fledgling of
the Monster Birds, but the twins transformed them into birds that are
respected and utilized by their Navajo people
Vee Browne was born in 1956, in Ganado, Arizona of the Bitter Water
and Water Flows Together clans. She has been awarded the Cowboy Hall
of Fame Award, the Buddy Bo Jack Nationwide Award for Humanitarianism
for Children's Books and Rounce and Coffin Club-Los Angeles 1994 Western
Books Award of Merit. She is presently a language arts teacher and a
school counselor at the Cottonwood Day School on the Navajo Indian Reservation
in northeastern Arizona. Along with writing three books, she has also
contributed short stories and poetry to several anthologies.
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