Yudonsi: A Tale From the Canyons - Hardcover

Grade 1-3-This cautionary tale about graffiti and the arrogance of youth takes place in a modern Native American village somewhere in the Southwest. Yusi is a brash young man with a mysterious compulsion to deface surfaces throughout the village by "tagging" them with his name. The villagers are appalled by Yusi's behavior and the village elder implores him to stop, warning, "The canyon does not like your tag." The admonition falls on deaf ears and the boy is renamed "You don't see" or "Yudonsi" by the outraged community. When he is shunned at a gathering because his neighbors fear the wrath of the canyon if he were allowed to attend, he scales its walls and spray paints the beautiful rock face. A torrential rainstorm falls on the area and floods threaten the village. The community seeks shelter in the very same cave in which Yusi is waiting out the storm. A kind of reconciliation is achieved when he comes out of the shadows playing a remorseful but joyous tune on his flute. This facile resolution detracts from the story's authenticity, as does the rather coy renaming of the boy. Lovely, impressionistic oil paintings featuring dramatic desert scenery are not supported by an equally strong text. This morality tale suffers from poor character development and a somewhat heavy-handed message. A disappointing offering from a talented storyteller and illustrator.
Rosalyn Pierini, San Luis Obispo City-County Library, CA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Blake's (Akiak) tale of a contemporary Native American boy traffics less in character development than cultural stereotypes. Yusi, a member of a Southwestern tribe, is "different" and "want[s] everyone to know it," too. So he spray-paints, draws and even carves his "tag," or name, all around his canyon village. The people are alarmed: they believe the canyon is alive and "would take care of the people only as long as they cared for the canyon." When Yusi will not stop, they begin to call him Yudonsi ("you don't see") and to ignore him; to retaliate, Yusi decides to paint an enormous tag on the canyon wall. The fierce storm that follows (caused, it is implied, by Yusi's hubris) brings the tribe members together and, predictably, forces Yusi to "see" the interconnectedness of all thingsAan epiphany he expresses by picking up a flute and playing "a song that he had never heard before... the song of the ages." Blake's rugged, naturalistic paintings, thick oils laid on canvas with a palette knife, are particularly strong at capturing the Southwestern landscape in all its shades of red and brown, yellow and gray; his carefully cadenced prose tells Yusi's story with a clarity and directness that is often compelling. But the unrelenting focus on message is likely to leave many readers cold. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.