N. Scott Momaday

Drawing on childhood memories of Christmas in a New Mexican village, Momaday produces a poetic story that skillfully blends Christian and Native American traditions. On Christmas Eve, Tolo, a lonely mute boy, is drawn by the spirit of his beloved grandfather to a bonfire in the mountains, where he shares a "circle of wonder and good will" with an elk, a wolf and an eagle…in this brief glimpse of the interconnectedness of all life, his loneliness is banished forever. Features Momaday's singular, impressionistic artwork. — Publishers Weekly

"The stories in The Way to Rainy Mountain are told in three voices. The first voice is the voice of my father, the ancestral voice, and the voice of the Kiowa oral tradition. The second is the voice of historical commentary. And the third is that of personal reminiscence, my own voice. There is a turning and returning of myth, history, and memoir throughout, a narrative wheel that is as sacred as language itself." — Preface