Coyote Christmas: A Lakota Story

Publisher's Decription (Abrams Books): 
A traditional American Indian folklore character gets a modern update in this charming Christmas story from award-winning author and illustrator S. D. Nelson.

On Christmas Eve on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, Coyote wants to find some people to trick out of a hot meal. Sneaky Coyote is known by American Indians as the Trickster. He knows that there's one person people can't refuse on Christmas Eve: Santa Claus! In red rags and a woolly Santa's beard, the Trickster fools a family into welcoming him to their Christmas dinner. But just when he thinks he's gotten away with his ruse, taking their food and leaving the family with nothing, he's foiled by a strange occurrence. Could it be a Christmas miracle?

Coyote's antics, beautifully told and illustrated by award-winning author and member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe S. D. Nelson, will delight readers, and his eventual comeuppance just in time for Christmas makes this a perfect holiday tale.

Author Biography (Strong Nations):
S. D. Nelson is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in the Dakotas. “My people are known as the Sioux or Lakota. During the 19th century they were renowned as the Horse People of the Great Plains. My ancestors were also the people of the Buffalo, for the Buffalo gave them most of their food, their warm robes, and the lodge skins of their tipis. My people followed great herds of them across the vast grasslands beneath an endless blue sky.” Nelson’s artwork appears on book jackets, greeting cards, and CD covers, and his paintings are held in both private and public collections. He has written and illustrated numerous award-winning children’s books.

S. D. Nelson earned his bachelor’s degree in Art at Minnesota State University at Moorhead. His paintings offer a fresh contemporary interpretation of traditional Lakota images. S. D. has painted extensively on animal skins and bone. He has crafted traditional rawhide drums, beaded on leather and created ledger book drawings. Nelson’s fluid style and traditional Native American imagery combines movement, color, and form into a visual celebration of life.

Resource format: Picturebook

Age recommendation: grades 3-5

Keywords: Lakota, Sioux, Coyote, trickster, trickster figure, Christmas, animals, relationships, traditions, value system, hospitality, human-animal relationships, materialism, generosity, sharing, holiday, celebration, feasting

Year of publication: 2007

Publisher information: Harry N. Abrams