Review of "The Animals’ Wishes," by Dovie Thompson

 Review of

The Animals’ Wishes, by Dovie Thompson ISBN 0763567442

Five out of five stars

Traditional Native American tale about the rabbit and the owl

 In Native American folklore, the Maker was the one that made all of the living creatures, starting with somewhat amorphous tufts of protoplasm. Since the Maker was kind, he allowed each of the creatures to give input as to what their final features would be.

 The story opens with the Maker interacting with the precursor to the rabbit. As the rabbit tells the maker what characteristics he would like, the precursor to the owl lands and interrupts with demands rather than requests. Even though the Maker tells the owl to leave, it persists to the point where the Maker leaves the rabbit incomplete in structure. The request was for strong forelegs and an expansive tail, but the Maker becomes frustrated with the owl and leaves the development task incomplete.

 Furthermore, the owl does not get very much of what it wants. Rather than a long neck like a swan, it has no neck. The owl requested the ability to make a complex birdsong, but all the Maker allowed it to do was utter the single word of “Who.”

 There are many Native American tales of how the creatures had their characteristics developed, this is typical, with many such tales designed to explain species-specific oddities.  The large size of the book and the text will allow it to be read to large groups of children, where they can see the pictures and read the text from a distance.

 With the multi-cultural aspect of a Native American myth and the structure of the book, this is an ideal for reading to small and large groups of children.