Folklore is a global phenomenon and one with which the Irish are very familiar. There is therefore something both comforting and exotic in reading traditional stories from Native American tribes in Irish in Scéalta ó Oileán an Turtair . The book will strike a chord with those who have read about "the little people" in the Gaeltachtaí of Donegal, Connemara and Kerry. Yet there is still excitement in realising that it is not the Fianna who are before us but the Lakota and the Cherokee. These little parables, retold lucidly by the poet and translator Gabriel Rosenstock, offer an insight into a different way of viewing the world. They are quiet stories, many just a couple of hundred words long, and full of wisdom: how owl got big eyes; how bear lost his tail; how the butterfly came to be. A word of congratulations too for the book's illustrator, Olivia Golden. Her artwork is stunning and evocative and should surely be made available as posters for those, students and adults alike, who still like to decorate their rooms the old-fashioned, framed way.
