A Turtle With Feathers?

Written by Tim Tingle and illustrated by Stacey Schuett, picture book When Turtle Grew Feathers: A Folktale from the Chocktaw Nation is the Chocktaw telling of Aesop’s fable “The Tortoise and the Hare.”  Published in 2007 by August House LittleFolk, this book for children ages 4-8 provides an explanation as to why you never see turtles and rabbits racing, for when Rabbit challenges Turtle to a race in this story, Rabbit is surprised to be beaten by Turkey, who had been trying on Turtle’s shell.  Stacey Schuett’s acrylic paintings beautifully illustrate this story of friendship and provide the reader with charming depictions of the animal cast’s expressions, while Tim Tingle’s use of rhymed dialogue and onomatopoeia provide the sounds of the tale’s animals and help us to understand the value of humility.  Not only does this story make an entertaining read-aloud for young readers, but it also has a place as curriculum support, the author’s source note at the end providing another point of reference for the study of Native American mythology. Children and their caregivers will enjoy this Choctaw tale, learning, as Tingle puts it, that “you don’t have to be the biggest, or the fastest, or the best.  But it sure is nice to be friends with those that are!”