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Mouse Woman
The Mouse Woman Trilogy
In the late 1970s, celebrated children’s author Christie Harris published three books known as the Mouse Woman Trilogy. These witty, well-researched versions of Native legends feature a central character, Mouse Woman, who is a narnauk — a supernatural being who takes the shape of both a mouse and a prim and proper human grandmother. Mouse Woman’s role is to keep order between other narnauks and humans, especially young humans, who are often led astray by the narnauks. The crafty Mouse Woman uses tact and more than a little trickery to set things right. A unique and wonderful character, Mouse Woman is always enterprising, but also sympathetic — and, of course, always successful. This new omnibus edition contains all of Harris’ Mouse Woman stories, together with Douglas Tait’s striking original artwork. Together, they offer a fascinating look at the world of the Haida people of the Pacific Northwest.
- GenresCanada
464 pages, Paperback
First published February 28, 2007
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35 people want to read
About the author
Christie Harris
42 books2 followersA Canadian children's author best known for her portrayal of Haida First Nations culture in the 1966 novel Raven's Cry.
In 2002, the Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize was created in her honor.
In 2002, the Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize was created in her honor.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 15, 2021
Mouse Woman liked everyone and everything to be proper. To her, anyone who was disturbing the proper order of the world was a mischief-maker. And being the busiest little busybody in the Place-of-Supernatural-Beings, she always did something about mischief-makers.
(Christie Harris, The Mouse Woman Trilogy, p.18)
I first ran across Mouse Woman in Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters and fell in love instantly. In that story,The Princess and the Magical Hat, the son of Great-Whirlpool-Maker kidnaps a human princess and leaves his father’s magic hat behind. Mouse Woman orchestrates the hostage trade.
Always ready to meddle in the name of keeping the natural order, the diminutive Mouse Woman is a favorite of mine specifically because she believes in keeping everything even, i.e. no one causes problems without facing consequences. For example, in Mouse Woman and the Snee-nee-iq the child-eating giant gets punishment for kidnapping the child, and the child gets punishment for being a nasty enough little brat to have attracted the giant in the first place.
The book contains 20 stories divided into three categories. In Mouse Woman and the Mischief-Makers she deals with narnauks kidnapping beautiful humans and humans being greedy and not respecting nature and the spirits. Mouse Woman and the Lost Princesses is fairly straightforward and has stories of princesses who go missing and the adventures Mouse Woman helps them succeed in. And Mouse Woman and the Muddle-heads has humans and narnauks making fools and nuisances of themselves and usually only need minimal meddling.
Douglas Tait’s artwork depicts the narnauks in their human forms and he has a gift for creating pieces that speak the story.
EDITING:
I only noticed a single error with a running head where one page shows the title to the wrong story.
ENJOYABILITY:
The stories were a delight. And while I appreciate those in Italian Folktales these are ones I can see myself using as bedtime stories.
THEME:
Not only do they all keep to the obvious theme of all being Mouse Woman stories, but they divide further into the themes from the three source books. While I usually feel that this category should be replaced I want to say that there were stories where I had to think for a second if they fit under one category or another and they always fit ever so slightly better in the one Harris chose for them.
THE VERDICT?
Honestly, I'm just waiting for the price of this book to come down so I can get my own copy. It's not in print, but it's still got plenty of used copies floating around and it's still in the library catalogue so check it out by all means.
(Christie Harris, The Mouse Woman Trilogy, p.18)
I first ran across Mouse Woman in Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters and fell in love instantly. In that story,The Princess and the Magical Hat, the son of Great-Whirlpool-Maker kidnaps a human princess and leaves his father’s magic hat behind. Mouse Woman orchestrates the hostage trade.
Always ready to meddle in the name of keeping the natural order, the diminutive Mouse Woman is a favorite of mine specifically because she believes in keeping everything even, i.e. no one causes problems without facing consequences. For example, in Mouse Woman and the Snee-nee-iq the child-eating giant gets punishment for kidnapping the child, and the child gets punishment for being a nasty enough little brat to have attracted the giant in the first place.
The book contains 20 stories divided into three categories. In Mouse Woman and the Mischief-Makers she deals with narnauks kidnapping beautiful humans and humans being greedy and not respecting nature and the spirits. Mouse Woman and the Lost Princesses is fairly straightforward and has stories of princesses who go missing and the adventures Mouse Woman helps them succeed in. And Mouse Woman and the Muddle-heads has humans and narnauks making fools and nuisances of themselves and usually only need minimal meddling.
Douglas Tait’s artwork depicts the narnauks in their human forms and he has a gift for creating pieces that speak the story.
EDITING:
I only noticed a single error with a running head where one page shows the title to the wrong story.
ENJOYABILITY:
The stories were a delight. And while I appreciate those in Italian Folktales these are ones I can see myself using as bedtime stories.
THEME:
Not only do they all keep to the obvious theme of all being Mouse Woman stories, but they divide further into the themes from the three source books. While I usually feel that this category should be replaced I want to say that there were stories where I had to think for a second if they fit under one category or another and they always fit ever so slightly better in the one Harris chose for them.
THE VERDICT?
Honestly, I'm just waiting for the price of this book to come down so I can get my own copy. It's not in print, but it's still got plenty of used copies floating around and it's still in the library catalogue so check it out by all means.
August 27, 2012
My second favorite book of all time, after "Indian Tales" by Jaime D'Angulo. Rereading now after having read all the stories aloud to my kids years ago...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews