The Trickster and the Troll - by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

1998 WWA Spur Awards, Finalist in Best Western Juvenile Fiction

The friendship and adventures of Iktomi, the trickster figure from Lakota legend, and Troll, the familiar character from Norse mythology, are the subject of this imaginative, marvelously spun tale. While searching for his Norwegian immigrant family, the gentle, lumbering Troll meets Iktomi. The vain, opportunistic Trickster soon discovers that he too has lost his people, the Lakota. When Iktomi and Troll eventually find their peoples, they are neither recognized nor wanted. The lonely Trickster and the Troll find solace in their friendship and take refuge in a cave. Many years pass before they are rediscovered and loved again.

Review Quotes

"Adults will sense the poignancy of Sneve's intended message that folkloric figures will live on only when people care to remember and pass on their tales, whereas children will read for the story and will sense the characters' isolation and their joy when they find humans that remember."-"Booklist"

"All children will respond to the love, loss, heartache and humor in this book."-"Rapid City Journal"

About the Author

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, a well-known Lakota writer whose husband is of Norwegian descent, conceived of this story as a way to teach her children about their mixed-blood heritage. She is the author of many children's books and of the memoir Completing the Circle (Nebraska 1995), winner of the 1992 North American Indian Prose Award. She and her husband live in Rapid City, South Dakota. She was awarded a National Humanities Medal in 2000.