Sing Down the Rain - Hardcover

Moreillon, Judi

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1885772076 ISBN 13: 9781885772077

Publisher: Kiva Pub Inc, 1997

Synopsis

The Tohono O'Odham Indians who live in the Sonoran Desert prepare for the rains necessary to provide fruit for the Saguaro Wine Ceremony, their most important harvest celebration

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Gr 2-5--Written as a choral reading for eight parts, this rhyming text describes the Saguaro Wine Ceremony, an important celebration of the Tohono O'odham tribe of the Sonoran desert. This ceremony is integrally related to the hope for rain, calling it down from the sky. Inevitably, the book will be compared to Verna Aardema's Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain (Dial, 1981). While the latter is superior both in text and illustrations, it complements Moreillon's book. Aardema's story is a porquoi tale, while this is a celebration of a culture's traditions. The opportunity presented for cross-cultural comparison is fertile indeed. Used with Brenda Guiberson's Cactus Hotel (Holt, 1991), it could also be used to help explain the human role in desert ecology while focusing on that most amazing of desert plants, the Saguaro cactus. A pairing with Ekkehart Malotki's The Magic Hummingbird (Kiva, 1996) serves to reinforce the importance of rain to the Native cultures of the Southwest. Chiago makes expert use of black line to delineate his human figures, but the real strength of his watercolor illustrations lies in his treatment of the skies. His use of deep tones and cottonball clouds is reminiscent of Barbara Cooney's art. This is a versatile title that serves as both a social studies and language-arts extension.

Ann Welton, Terminal Park Elementary School, Auburn, WA

Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Kiva Pub Inc
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1885772076
• ISBN 13: 9781885772077
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Chiago Michael