Soft Child: How Rattlesnake Got Its Fangs

Book Review:

This story is a Native American folktale told by the Tohono O'odham peoples of the Arizona plateau and basin lands. Joe Hayes retells this origin tale wrapped in Kay Sather's artistic talents in the original tradition of these people. The story begins with the creator of all thing, the Sky God, creating all living creatures, and allowing each of its kind to choose one special talent or defense mechanism by which to protect themselves during their physical life journey on Earth. Each animal chooses a different gifting which will ward off predators, except for Softchild, a mild-mannered snake, who chooses for the Sky God to fashion a rattle that he can wear so that all the other animals can hear him and not step upon him. The other animals think this is hilarious and ridicule him by kicking him up in the air. The Sky God feels compassion on the rattlesnake, and walks with him into the woods one evening, where he makes Softchild set of venomous fangs from a devil's claw purse. Softchild would no longer be picked on by the other animals as the jack rabbit discovers at the conclusion of this book.

This book brings to life the traditional Tohono O'odham creation story, and provides a creative way for children to understand not only the animals who live in our world, but also introduce them to the ideologies and culture of the Southwest native Americans. This entertaining is different from the many coyote stories that are present in much of traditional folktales. Here we have a rattlesnake, who in his good nature, has to develop the deadliest defense mechanism of all, a venomous bite. I feel that this story provides more than just a nice fable for young children to enjoy, but it also introduces them to the beginning of understanding why our world works the way in which it does. For example, in this story (as is true in many native Americana folktales) the storyteller is showing that an animal is not inherently evil because it possesses a defense mechanism. Here the creature has a defense mechanism out of necessity and not evil intent, a concept which is all too often muddled in modern mediums.

I believe that this story is an excellent one to share with a child of an elementary school age. Kay Sather supports the story with vivid and lifelike sketch drawing of the events that occur in the story within the pages of the book. She renders all of the artwork in an array of black and white contours and texture, and wonderfully brings the text to life. Joe Hayes does a beautiful job in keeping the story pure of censorship and modern ideals. Once again, I would encourage teachers who are interested in sharing Southwestern culture to check this book out of the library and to visit our online Southwest website at ...

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