The Magic of Spider Woman - Hardcover

LOIS DUNCAN is the author of fifty books, most of them for young people. Her suspense novels have
received Young Readers Awards in sixteen states and three foreign countries. Lois lives with her husband,
Don Arquette, in Sarasota, Florida. She can be contacted through her Web site at www.loisduncan.

Grade 3-6?Much more than a pourquoi tale, this story also concerns the rejection of obsession, even in the service of beauty, and recalls the Greek myth of Arachne. When Wandering Girl learns from Spider Woman how to make blankets from her sheep's wool, she is renamed Weaving Woman. She marries and spends a winter at her loom. In the spring, she discovers how to make dyes and is inspired to "create the most beautiful blanket in all of the world." As this goal consumes her, she forgets the Navajo Middle Way; her life loses its balance and her spirit becomes trapped in the blanket. Through a shaman's intervention, Spider Woman returns to pull a loose strand from the border, spoiling its perfection and freeing the weaver's spirit. Since then, the text adds, "every Navajo blanket has been woven with a pathway, so the spirit of the weaver will not be imprisoned by its beauty." The details Duncan adds from the Dineh creation story, as well as the happy ending, make it distinctively Navajo, as do Begay's light-spangled paintings. Significantly, in almost every one, the perfect rectangle of the illustration is broken by an element of the design extending beyond it: a visual reminder of the story's moral. The impact of the heroine's decision to use dyes is somewhat lessened by the brightly patterned clothing she wears throughout. Nevertheless, Begay's dramatic shifts of perspective, his innate sensitivity to the land and people depicted, and the text's powerful message about pride's deadly effects combine in an appealing and meaningful way.?Patricia (Dooley) Lothrop Green, St. George's School, Newport, RI
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.