Author: Paul Goble
Illustrator: Paul Goble
Publisher: Atheneuml/Richard Jackson Books
ISBN: 0689845049
This September will mark my grandmother's 100th birthday. If that is not incredible enough, she still lives in her own home and still loves to tell a great story. Those stories are often a look back at an event from her life as well as the life of her parents and grandparents. They reflect the cultural beliefs of our family that have been passed down from generation to generation. My Nana's storytelling has created a wonderful piece of folktale history for my family which has helped me closely identify with my history and culture.
Paul Goble's The Girl Who Loved Horses is a Native American folktale that successfully captures Native American culture. It is about a young girl who has an incredible gift for understanding and caring for her village's horses. So much so, she spends all of her free time with the horses. When a sudden storm causes her to be dragged away from her village, she overcomes her initial fear to find a freedom beyond all that she has imagined. When that freedom is challenged by her "rescue" and return to her village, the girl's family must make the difficult decision to let her go back to the pack of wild horses where she belongs. Once returned, the girl eventually becomes a beautiful new mare and her legend lives on through village stories of the girl who loved horses so much so, she finally become one herself.
The story is told with very simple words while still offering the reader an accurate connection between nature and Native American culture. The simple text may quickly draw in the reader, but it is Goble's beautiful and amazing artwork that give real dimension to the clothing, customs and surroundings of Native American culture. It is a style I find reminiscent of the artwork I have seen in museums of authentic Native American pottery, drawings and other artifacts. I would imagine Paul Goble's culturally accurate illustrations gave cause for his win of the 1978 Caldecott Metal for his artwork in The Girl Who Loved Horses. Goble's story offers endless possibilities in the classroom. The traditional folktale link between man and animals would be a wonderful direction of study that would develop students cultural awareness of Native Americans and their influence on folktales.
Paul Goble is an artist born and trained in England. With over thirty books based on Native American folktales to his credit, one has to wonder how a guy from England came to identify so closely with Native American cultures? From my research, it seems that Goble has always felt a connection to the spirituality of Native American culture and began visiting various Indian Reservations over the years before settling in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It is from here that Goble accurately re-creates traditional Native American folktales allowing us, as readers, to identify with the important historical and cultural traditions of Native Americans.
You can check out Paul Goble at http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/authors/Paul-Goble.
First, I have to say that when you mentioned the Black Hills of South Dakota, I couldn't help remembering the Beatles song, "Rocky Raccoon." I can't lie, it is the only other time I've heard of that place, it must be pretty barren. You can tell it is just by the cover of the book you chose. It looks like Paul Goble has gotten pretty familiar with the scenery there and the colors on the cover really capture the mood.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the story seems very interesting. I like the fact that the girl ends up being a horse at the end. It sounds like a great story, I'll have to give it a read.