The Girl Who Married the Moon

September 29, 1997
Bruchac and Ross (How Rabbit Tricked Otter) team up for a companion volume to Bruchac's Flying with Eagle, Racing with Great Bear, a collection of Native American tales that focused on boys' rites of passage. Here, girls or young women are the protagonists of 16 stories intended ``to reach the daughters and granddaughters who will come after.'' Becoming a woman and marrying correctly are common themes: brave and resourceful heroines escape monsters and kidnappers, comically avoid marriage to trickster Owl or tragically die with their husbands. Unusual selections include ``The Beauty Way,'' a recounting of an Apache rite of passage; ``Stonecoat,'' the defeat of an evil and powerful medicine man by women who use the power of their ``moontime''; and the title story, in which a girl not only marries the moon but shares his job with him. Comments on the stories open the four sections of the book (Northeast, Northwest, Southeast and Southwest), each of which contains tales from four different nations (e.g., Penobscot, Seneca, Passamaquoddy and Mohegan for the Northeast). An afterword and source notes close this useful resource for storytelling and multicultural learning. Ages 10-13.