Books with author Jennifer Owings Dewey

The Shaman and the Water Serpent is a book for children that demonstrates how ancient Puebloan peoples carried out their daily lives. Renowned children's author Jennifer Owings Dewey writes about the Puebloan peoples' relationships with animals, and Benton Yazzie recreates the rock art depictions of familiar animals: deer, antelope, and rabbits. Characters include the shaman, a man with supernatural power who provides insights into the mysterious world of gods and the spirits. Men and boys honor the animals they hunt by singing songs to their spirits, while the women, children, and old people wait hungrily back in the village. A drought has set in and the villagers wonder when the rains will return. As they hope for rain, the women and girls tend to the corn and the men sharpen their arrow points for the next hunt. The water serpent, a revered animal, travels along the riverbanks and is thought by the Puebloan peoples to be just the animal to coax the rain back onto their dry fields.

One day a spider appeared on the window ledge outside the glass. Right away she began to spin a web. Thus begins an inspiring true story―a story of an expectant mother who develops an unexpected relationship with the spider that makes a home outside her window. As the summer and the mother's pregnancy progress, the spider is beginning its own circle of life. From its first graceful web, to its creation of a delicate egg sac, the spider lives through the fall season, and what should be the end of its life. But by a small miracle of nature, the orb weaver endures the snow and the winter, and stays with her eggs until spring. This gentle story with strikingly detailed illustrations reveals the exceptional magic in the everyday world, and how it can touch our lives. The parallel stories of the human mother and the spider show how stopping to observe nature can allow you to witness everyday miracles. Additional in-depth information on spiders is included in an afterword.