Review: Trickster Edited by Matt Dembicki
Title: Trickster: Native American Tales, A Graphic Collection
Editor: Dembicki, Matt
Length: 232 pages
Genre: Fiction, Young Adult, Graphic Novel
Publisher / Year: Fulcrum Books / 2010
Source: Book Expo America, Fulcrum Books, author signing!
Rating: 5/5
Why I Read It: I saw it in the list of signings and thought it sounded really good. I love folktales, I love North American Folktales, and I keep saying I need to try more Graphic Novels!
Date Read: 02/06/10
I kept seeing graphic novels reviewed by so many bloggers and saying wow, I need to start trying out some of these. And let me just say, I am awful glad that I did, and that I started with this one. This book is a collection of 21 short stories, each by a different storyteller and a different artist. This gives the book a huge breadth of styles and stories which was really interesting to read.
I am reviewing this book with Trisha of Eclectic-Eccentric (her review is here). I will review the first 11 stories, and she will review the last 1o. I’m not really sure how to go about reviewing a graphic novel collection, so I will just provide a general overview of my thoughts.
The fact that each tale had a different writer and artist was probably my favorite part. Each story was quite short, only a few pages long, and was about a Native American tale involving a trickster. So in almost each tale somebody was being tricked.
I was lucky enough to get this signed by the editor and two of the graphic artists while at Book Expo America. Isn’t it lovely?
The cover picture is from the tale Rabbit and the Tug of War. In that tale rabbit tricked two buffalo, and then when they said they would punish him for tricking them by not letting him drink at a waterhole, he tricked them again by borrowing the deer’s shoes to go take a drink.
As this tale shows, these Native American tales don’t all have a moral, and I liked that. it was interesting to read these short, simple trickster tales and have the trickster come out on top sometimes.
A lot of the tales also explained natural landscapes (such as Moshup’s Bridge, where Cheepee tricked Moshup into thinking that it was morning so the bridge – near the Elizabeth Islands – remains as jutting stones rather than a finished land bridge), or animal behaviors.
My favorite story in the collection was the first story, Coyote and the Pebbles. In this story the animals petition the Great Mystery for more light at night. The Great Mystery tells them to get pebbles and draw pictures in the sky… coyote ends up tripping and scattering his pebbles, ruining everyone’s pictures. The scattered pebbles stay as they are, and the pebbles become stars. To this day, you can hear Coyote howling to the Great Mystery at night, asking for another chance to draw in the sky so the other animals will stop being so angry at him.
Other tricksters in these tales include the raven, the racoon, the fox, and the wolf. And to mix things up, there is also a tale where the rabbit tricks the wolf, who is his own trickster in another tale.
One of the tales that does include a moral is Rabbits Choctaw Tail Tale. In this story rabbit talks and talks and talks way too much. He tries to convince the fox to give him some of his fish, but instead, the fox convinces him to go ice fishing. He explains that he should use his tail to catch the fish. In the end his tail becomes frozen in the ice, and that is why rabbits have short stumpy tails. This story’s moral is not to talk too much, or you might lose your tail. I can breathe easy as I don’t have a tail to lose!
The last tale I will highlight is Azban and the Crayfish. Azban is a tricky raccoon who really wants to eat crayfish. In this story he tricks 
the crayfish into thinking that he is dead. They come out of the water and dance around him. Once they fall asleep, he has a huge feast. The story ends with this (on page 46):
Since there are still crayfish in the world today, it is obvious that some of them escaped… perhaps all of those who survived also taught their children that it is unwise to be too quick to celebrate the misfortunes of their enemies. For ever since then, no crayfish has ever been seen singing or doing a victory dance again!
I thought that was pretty cute, so wanted to include it.
Overall, a great collection of short and simple tales. Definitely worth picking up both for the stories and for the great art.
I can’t believe how similarly we reviewed this, both in what we said and what we included in the review. Too funny!
It is pretty funny isn’t it! I thought very similar thoughts to you on the stories that you reviewed too. I guess we both have good taste
Thanks for reviewing with me!
I love graphic novels Amy so thanks for reveiwing this one which I hadn’t seen before. And great you got it signed! I was hoping TDW was going to be a graphic novel! American Gods, a fiction novel, by Neil Gaiman is based on the West African trickster god called Anansi who is supposed to be akin to the Native American coyote or raven. It is a great read by a brilliant author.
You are welcome Trent. It is a new one I believe, but I do hope it makes it across the water for you. It was a lot of fun. American Gods sounds wonderful, thanks for letting me know about it!
Interesting. I’m not a big fan of story collections in general – I can’t read them one story after another, anyway. I have to spread them out over a long time or I get jaded. But this sounds like a fun collection.
This is a really fun collection Amanda! I think you would enjoy it.
I’m very new to graphic novels too. In fact, the first one I picked up was Fables after seeing it on Trisha’s blog. (Actually, every graphic novel I’ve bought so far has been because of a recommendation of Trisha or Amanda, lol!!) I love how you and Trisha did this joint review, btw. I’m wondering if I’d like this one though considering it’s mainly animals that are the characters instead of people. But it does sound cute!
Thanks Jenny. Trisha and Amanda (and a few others) really made me want to try graphic novels. I think I’ll try another one being as I liked this so much, I’m not sure what though. Did you enjoy Fables? I actually preferred the stories with animals more than the ones with humans in this collection, funny enough.
Ha, that’s funny! I did like Fables… but it was my first one so I didn’t really have anything to compare it too. I’m in the middle of the second one and I’m not so sure how I feel about it yet.
Understandable. Jenners. It’s hard to really know when you don’t have others to compare to
this looks wonderful amy ,not usually a graphic fan but sounds amazing ,i have a love of folk tales ,hope it reachs uk ,all the best stu
I also love folk tales Stu, and I hope it makes it over that way as well
This sounds perfect! I want it so badly. I love the fact that the artwork is so varied.
I hope you can find a copy Ana. I think you would like it. It was so neat how varied it was!
Oh, this sounds fabulous! I LOVE that it’s Native American stories told by different authors and illustrated by different artists. What a great idea!
Thanks Aarti. I agree! Also, the authors were Native Americans, so they were telling their own stories. That made it even neater, I thought.
I’ll second what Aarti said: this sounds fabulous! And I’m kicking myself for not picking up a copy at BEA too!
It was great to meet you in NYC!
Aw too bad that you didn’t get a copy Avis. It was really great to meet you too
I’ve never seen a graphic novel that was a collection of stories by different authors. This sounds wonderful.
It definitely is wonderful. I recommend it!
Wonderful review! I really enjoyed the way you have brought alive the delight of this graphic novel through words
I will search for this book.
Thanks Vishy. I hope you can find a copy
I haven’t read many graphic novels (or well, only Persepolis) and this sounds like a lovely collection to change that.
Persepolis 1 and 2 were the only graphic novels I had read previous to this as well Iris!