NAVAHO FOLK TALES <i> by Franc Johnson Newcomb (University of New Mexico Press: $10.95, illustrated)</i>

Originally collected by the author for her children, these gentle tales will please adult readers as well. The 17 connected stories explain how the Dine’ (“The People,” as the Navaho call themselves) came to the present or Fifth World and learned the arts of living here. (Although the stories form a creation myth, they contain no references to a creator.) The imagery is often quite beautiful, especially in the account of how First Woman fashioned the sun and moon out of discs of quartz decorated with turquoise, coral and feathers. She made the stars from leftover chips of stone, to write “the laws that are to govern mankind for all time . . . if they are written in the stars they can be read and remembered forever.” In addition to the insights they offer into a noble and pacific culture, these tales provide ideal material for parents to read aloud to their children.