This delightful retelling of a Native American folktale is “a satisfying selection, creatively designed, with beautiful pictures and striking imagery” (School Library Journal). Coyote is used to playing tricks, but in this tale, the tables are turned. Stopping to take a quick nap by the big salty lake where he’s supposed to bring home salt for cooking, Coyote’s discovered by some mischievous butterflies. Playing their own trick, they carry Coyote home without his salt. Coyote is completely confused—until the third time when Coyote wakes up at home with his salt and discovers the butterflies have been having a bit of fun.

Coyote is tricked by some butterflies who laugh so hard about their joke that they cannot fly straight.

Habits and habitats of coyote and monarch butterflies.

The story tells why dull moths became colorful butterflies. This artfully illustrated book demonstrates friendship and its obstacles. It also teaches children colors, color combinations and how to work together.

Anita Endrezze has deep memories. Her father was a Yaqui Indian. Her mother traced her heritage to Slovenia, Germany, Romania, and Italy. And her stories seem to bubble up from this ancestral cauldron. Butterfly Moon is a collection of short stories based on folk tales from around the world. But its stories are set in the contemporary, everyday world. Or are they? Endrezze tells these stories in a distinctive and poetic voice. Fantasy often intrudes into reality. Alternate “realities” and shifting perspectives lead us to question our own perceptions. Endrezze is especially interested in how humans hide feelings or repress thoughts by developing shadow selves. In “Raven’s Moon,” she introduces the shadow concept with a Black Moon, the “unseen reflection of the known.” (Of course the story is about a witch couple who seem very much in love.) The title character in “The Wife Who Lived on Wind” is an ogress who lives in a world somewhat similar to our own, but only somewhat. “The Vampire and the Moth Woman” reveals shape-shifters living among us. Not surprisingly, Trickster appears in these tales. As in Native American stories, Trickster might be a fox or a coyote or a raven or a human—or something in between. “White Butterflies” and “Where the Bones Are” both deal with devastating diseases that swept through Yaqui country in the 1530s. Underneath their surfaces are old Yaqui folktales that feature the greatest Trickster of all: Death (and his little brother Fate). Enjoyably disturbing, these stories linger—deep in our memory.