How the Stars Fell into the Sky

By Jerrie Oughton
Published in 1992

      This story is a retold Navajo folk tale of how the stars appeared in the sky. It started when the First Woman realized that there needed to be a way for people to know the law. After some discussion her and the First Man came to the conclusion that the best way to do this was to write them in the sky for everyone to see. It was a long and tedious task but the woman placed each star carefully into the sky day determined to write the law. When the coyote comes to help though he gets restless of this tedious task and throws all the stars up into the sky at once. Creating the sky we see today, and the people were unknowingly walking around with no law to abide by since you could not read it through the confusion of the rest of the stars.
      Many kids have questions like how did the stars get in the sky? Reading books like this from a different culture I think is a good way to help students explore these kinds of questions. Since many different people and cultures have a different answer to that one question. It also shows how people use folk talks to answer questions they have.
       In regards to the illustrations they are very simple and focus on the beauty of nature. Using basic colors and drawing to illustrate each page. The drawing are also there to reinforce the text.