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Stars in the Water
by Lesley DuTemple
illus. by Jack Oyler
Mudminnow Press
ISBN: 978-0-9833018-1-3
$9.95 Softcover
I love the “how” stories. There are well-known examples: How the chipmunk got its stripes and how the bear got a short tail. But in this slender volume, Lesley DuTemple introduces tales less known, using First Nation oral narratives as inspiration, but, as she explains, not truly retelling the originals. Lesley, we know, is a fine writer; she wrote a story about a cordwood home in the October/November issue this year.
These stories of deer’s leg markings, water lily’s beginnings and coyote’s howl are wonderfully told and will be perfect read-aloud tales. The language is too advanced for the youngest of readers, though the 7.5-inch-square size volume makes it perfect for little hands to hold.
The stories also deal with morals, showing how prideful boasts mean little while generous creative thinking can win out.
Added to the well-told tales are marvelously fresh illustrations created by Jack Oyler, who paints on wood, layering the elements of each illustration in a three-dimensional tableau. They draw the reader’s interest in their distinctive form.
It all makes this a treasured book for any age. – Konnie LeMay
Mine Collar Mystery
written & illus. by 4th-Grade Students of C-L-K Elementary (2006)
Mudminnow Press
ISBN: 978-0-9833018-3-7
$9.95 Softcover
Published in 2012 by Copper Harbor, Michigan’s Mudminnow Press, this “history book” for children, by children, has a bit of a history itself.
The book – text and images – was the 2006 work of fourth-graders in teacher Holly Rivest’s class at C-L-K (Calumet-Laurium-Keweenaw) Elementary School. In this creative story, a turn-of-the-20th-century Finnish boy, 12-year-old Paavo, trips over a hunk of copper on his way to his first day of work in the mines. The stumble propels him forward in time to a school in 2006. Using the fiction of Paavo’s time travel, the children have written and illustrated a fact-filled story to make it entertaining to learn Copper Country history.
The history of the book is fun, too. Holly used the collaboration on the story to teach local history and entered it into a Scholastic writing contest. The story didn’t win, but she tried to get it published, eventually getting a C-L-K Foundation loan to self-publish a limited number. She submitted it to Great Lakes Great Books, and it earned an award as an “Honor Book.” Meanwhile, Lloyd Wescoat, a partner in Mudminnow Press along with Lesley DuTemple and Laura Smyth, took an interest. She helped to refine and publish the book.
“I truly believed in the story,” Holly told the Mining Gazette in a story about the work. “I just knew it was a really good story.”
It’s also great to see how children approach their region’s history. – KLM
Lies Beneath
by Anne Greenwood Brown
Delacorte Press
ISBN: 978-0-385-74201-6
$17.99 Hardcover
Young adult fiction of the paranormal kind has made its way to Lake Superior thanks to a former Bayfield Peninsula resident, Anne Greenwood Brown. It’s only natural that Anne’s story focuses on merpeople rather than vampires or budding wizards, giving the perfect way to weave the Lake Superior setting into her tale.
The plot revolves around the thirst for revenge by four mer-siblings, three sisters and a brother, though we quickly learn that some of the family members were “adopted.” In this world, merman Calder White and his sisters can swim saltwater or freshwater seas with ease and, with a relatively quick though painful transformation, can also walk on land among the humans. They eat food, but thrive off the emotions of humans.
The revenge they seek is for a generation-old wrong done to their mother. The retribution involves the drowning of one Jason Hancock, who, lucky for them, has just moved his family from Minneapolis back to his family’s homestead in Bayfield, Wisconsin. To lure Jason to the water, they decide to use his daughters – the teenage Lily or the preteen Sophie. It’s up to Calder to make the connect first with the daughters and then, so the plan goes, to use that connection to get Jason onto a boat on the water.
The rest will be up to the sisters, who have a decidedly less moderated outlook than their brother.
No good plot goes untwisted, though, and the turn in this is that Calder finds himself attracted to Lily. The rest is for the reading.
The storytelling here is straightforward and the introduction of Lake Superior locations a nice touch for us locals.
The fun, too, is in discovering the attributes and characteristics of Anne’s mermaids – what they can and cannot do in the world she (with the help of Lake Superior) has created. – KLM
Hawk Ridge
Minnesota’s Birds of Prey by Laura Erickson
illus. by Betsy Bowen
University of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 978-0-8166-8119-8
$24.95 Hardcover
It’s hard to imagine a better match for a bird guide than Laura Erickson, who does the “For the Birds” radio spots, and Betsy Bowen, a well-appreciated artist from Grand Marais.
The book begins with a history and introduction to Hawk Ridge, the point along the Skyline Parkway in Duluth that today hosts the Hawk Ridge Observatory but long before that has hosted the area’s premier raptor-migration watching spot.
Since banding began there, more than 100,000 of 23 raptor species have been tagged. But that does not begin to indicate the numbers of birds recorded passing there. On just one day in 2003, 101,698 broad-winged hawks were recorded. Other days, as Laura writes, you may hardly see one or two of any species.
After introducing Hawk Ridge, the book goes into detail about 20 different raptors. Laura is able to bring remarkable details about each species, including historic tidbits and environmental cautions.
Betsy is best known, perhaps, for her woodcuts, but her bold paintings in this book have turned this birding guide into an art book, too. This would be a spectacular gift for any birder, of course, but it’s an equally great gift for any person who loves the region and loves nature. – KLM
The books reviewed here, unless indicated, should be available through local booksellers by using the ISBN number. More regional reviews can be seen on www.LakeSuperior.com.