Book Description
for How Raven Got His Crooked Nose by Barbara J. Atwater, Ethan J. Atwater, and Mindy Dwyer
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
As a Dena’ina girl and her grandmother pick berries and clean salmon, the grandmother tells the story of how Chulyen, Raven, got his crooked nose. In the story within this story, vain Raven has lost his nose while Chida, a grandmother, has found a strange object that she can’t identify, but she knows it will make a good tool. Chida uses the new tool so often to scrape and clean that it starts to show wear. Raven, seeing Chida has his nose, comes up with a plan to scare her away from her house so he can steal it back. He’s successful, but his nose is so worn from all the use, and he jams it on so quickly, that it’s crooked forever after. This entertaining pourquoi tale uses two art styles to delineate the framing story from the Raven’s tale. Dena’ina words appear throughout, with a pronunciation guide at the bottoms of the pages and a glossary in the back. (Ages 5–8)
CCBC Choices 2019. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2019. Used with permission.