Harriet Peck Taylor enjoys tracking animals and hiking the foothills near her home, and has been known to communicate with a coyote. She is also a children's book author and illustrator who specializes in retellings of Native-American tales.

Taylor has been a professional artist since her college days, but her interest in children's books came about from friends urging her to submit her artwork to publishers. When she finally took their advice, it was a year before she found a publisher. In 1993, Bradbury published Coyote Places the Stars, a pourquoi story based on a Wasco Indian tale. Since then, Taylor has written and illustrated, in batik, about one book a year.

In 1995, Macmillan Books for Young Readers published another Coyote tale by Taylor, Coyote and the Laughing Butterflies. In this trickster tale from the Tewa Indians, butterflies trick the trickster.

Another pourquoi tale is told in Brother Wolf A Seneca Tale(Farrar, 1996). In this story, what had been colorless birds are given colors by a grateful Wolf who had been teased by Raccoon. The prankster Raccoon receives black rings around his tail.

When Bear Stole the Chinook: A Siksika Tale (Farrar, 1997) recounts the tale of a poor, courageous Indian boy who marshals his animal friends to rescue the warm dry wind that brings spring to the land.

Taylor says that being both author and illustrator means "I can choose words and phrases that will enhance my art." She begins by searching for a good idea or finding a tale to retell. "Researching and writing a good story is harder than it might seem. (But) once I have a good idea, sometimes the story comes fairly easily. I may write five or 10 different stories before I write one that has all the right elements that make it worth publishing."

She pays particular attention to finding a tale that is not only captivating but also "concise enough to allow the pictures to really capture the setting, action and characters."

Once Taylor has written the text, she begins the rough "dummy," which will help her plan the book's layout and show the editor where the words and accompanying art will go. Taylor does her drawings in pencil. The dummy goes through many revisions before Taylor begins the greatly enlarged batik illustrations. In batik, designs are created by dyeing fabric. Wax is used to keep the dye from penetrating areas that are not intended to be colored.

"I am very unusual as an illustrator," notes Taylor, "in that I work so large and on fabric. I use Japanese Sumi brushes to apply the dyes and draw the lines and patterns in liquid wax with a tool called a tjanting. The dyes offer the fluidity and spontaneity of watercolor while the wax lends definition of edges and clarity of design."

Her technique is, for the most part, self-taught. She is one of the few children's book illustrators (if not the only one) who is currently illustrating narrative titles in batik.

Harriet Peck Taylor was born on April 30, 1954, in Chicago and grew up in Winnetka, Illinois. After her graduation from New Trier High School, she attended the University of Colorado at Boulder where she earned a fine arts degree and an education degree. At the university she took a class in batik, but as she points out, "... from there on I taught myself." For the past 18 years Taylor has been working as an artist.

In addition to her picture books, she has designed art for public locations and for private collections. Her art is seen on greeting cards, sportswear, CD covers, fabrics, wallpaper, and wrapping paper. Art galleries handle her original art and an environmentally aware company markets T-shirts with her designs.

In describing her search for tales to retell, Taylor says, "I read and research hundreds of manuscripts of the oldest written record of the tales. I compare different versions of the same legend." After Taylor locates a tale, she reads extensively on the history of the tribe that originated it. She attempts to discover the context in which the original tale was told. She also discusses the tale with friends or acquaintances from the tribe so she can uncover interpretations and subtleties that are sometimes lost in written translations.

Her choice of a tale is based more on its content than its tribal origin. "The legend must really captivate and move me in some very special way. Only then can I hope to retell it in a way that it will come alive in the minds of my young readers."

In at least one instance Taylor's research was actually brought to life through an incident she experienced. Taylor currently lives in Boulder, Colorado, which she describes as "a small city on the edge of the Rocky Mountains." She owns two dogs, both mutts. Most days she hikes at dusk through the foothills near her house. Sometimes she hikes with three friends who share her passion for animal tracking and sometimes she hikes alone. Late one summer, during the research phase for Coyote Places the Stars, Taylor and her friends started seeing a young coyote.

Taylor says, "He would follow us up the trail and often he would stop and howl. Sometimes his howl seemed mournful and sometimes like he was just singing in the night. The coyote was curious about my dogs too. One evening when nobody was around, I decided to try my own feeble imitation of his howl. To my surprise, he responded!" Through the summer and into the fall Taylor and the coyote continued the communication.

One evening she and her companions were hiking just as the harvest moon was rising. "I didn't see the coyote so I tried to call him with my howl. Suddenly, on the hills and ridges all around us coyotes howled. Then a pack of eight joined each other on a nearby hillside. They wrestled and played and yawned and did coyote things under that harvest moon."

It is this kinship to the animals nearby that draws Taylor to the Native-American cultures and their views of the natural world. In the summer and fall she tracks bears, "not to disturb them or even to take their picture. It's just for the sheer joy of observing these strong, intelligent and beautiful animals from afar." In the winter, she tracks mountain lions and other animals of her area. She says, "The snow always has a story to tell! We have traveled to Alaska, Canada, Montana, and Wyoming in search of those wild places where man has had less impact."

Of her writing schedule, Taylor says, "I'm trying to do a book every one to two years. Researching and writing the story takes about six months. Illustrating the book takes six to nine months. The work is so challenging and all consuming that I find I need a breather between books."

Those breathers allow Taylor an opportunity to pursue her other art endeavors and to enjoy her pastimes: camping, reading, animals, and nature. Currently she is working on a fictional story about a Navajo shepherd boy who has a dream. "I feel so lucky that I get to do what I love," Taylor says.

Literature Connections: Books Written and Illustrated by Harriet Peck Taylor Brother Wolf: A Seneca Tale. Farrar, 1996. After Wolf is tricked by Raccoon, he is rescued by the colorless birds who peck away the plaster of clay and tar that covers his eyes. As a reward, Wolf paints the birds' colorless feathers with the bright colors taken from berries and clay. When Raccoon sees the birds, he asks Wolf to decorate his fur. Wolf does-- by giving Raccoon black rings around his tail.

Coyote and the Laughing Butterflies. Macmillan, 1995.

When the butterflies succeed in tricking Coyote, they laugh so hard they can no longer fly straight.

Coyote Places the Stars. Bradbury, 1993. In this tale from the Wasco Indians, Coyote arranges the stars in the shapes of his animal friends, and creates the constellations.

When Bear Stole the Chinook: A Siksika Tale. Farrar, 1997.

An unusually long, hard winter causes a tribe great hardship. The Great Bear has stolen the warm winds, called the chinook, to keep himself warm. An orphan boy and his animal friends journey to the lodge of the Great Bear and release the chinook, and with it, the warmth of spring. Bears now hiberate will winter to keep warm.

The common element in Taylor's retellings is that each explains an event or element that is part of nature. These tales are generally referred to as "why" stories, or by the French term pourquoi. Many of the suggestions given below could be used with any one of Taylor's pourquoi tales. Others are more closely related to a specific title.

(1.) Head other pourquoi tales in picture book format and develop a definition of the form. Some books are:

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears: A West African Tale by Verna Aardema. Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. Dial, 1975.

The Cat's Purr by Ashley Bryan. Illustrated by Ashley Bryan. Atheneum, 1985.

Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti by Gerald McDermott. Holt, 1988 reissue.

Rainbow Crow: A Lenape Tale by Nancy Van Laan. Illustrated by Beatriz Vidal. Knopf, 1991.

(2.) Continue a focus on pourquoi tales by reading Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. Encourage students to write their own pourquoi stories.

(3.) Learn about constellations by reading Franklyn M. Branley's The Big Dipper (HarperCollins, 1991), H.A. Rey's classic title Find the Constellations (Houghton, 1980), or Constellations by Paul B. and Diane M. Sipiera (Childrens Press, 1997).

(4.) Read other pourquoi tales about constellations, such as

"What Happened to Six Wives Who Ate Onions" in The Talking Stone: An Anthology of Native American Tales and Legends. Illustrated by Donald Crews. Greenwillow, 1979.

Her Seven Brothers by Paul Goble. Bradbury, 1988.

Star Boy by Paul Goble. Bradbury, 1983.

"Star Boy" by George Grinnell in North American Legends. Collins, 1979.

The Star Husband by Jane Mobley. Donbleday, 1979.

The Dancing Stars: An Iroquois Legend by Anne Rockwell. Crowell, 1972.

The Legend of Scarface: A Blackfeet India Tale by Robert D. San Souci. Illustrated by Daniel San Souci. Doubleday, 1978.

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By Sharron L. McElmeel

Sharron L. McElmeel is well known for her books about children's writers and about literature-based curriculums. One of her most recent is Literature Frameworks: From Apples to Zoos (Linworth, 1997). She is an editorial consultant to the magazine TECHNOLOGY CONNECTION and the editor of a monthly column called Cool Stuff on the Net. She is the co-author of Internet for Schools, 2nd edition, also published by Linworth. McElmeel is a media specialist with the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Community Schools.

©2005 Sharron L. McElmeel

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