TALES OF THE GRIZZLY compiled by Timothy...

TALES OF THE GRIZZLY compiled by Timothy W. Clark and Denise Casey, illustrated by Beth Krommes (Homestead Publishing / Box 193 / Moose , WY 83012: $13.95; 190 pp., paperback original). The legends, journal accounts and reminiscences in this anthology trace the changes in human attitudes toward the largest predator on the North American continent. Most Amerindian tribes regarded the Grizzly with reverential awe, but over the centuries, the attitudes of European settlers and their descendants shifted from terror to annoyance at a pest that should be exterminated to nostalgia. In the Pawnee fable “The Bear Man,” a grizzly prophetically states, “I am an animal and I look to one above. He made me, and he made me to be great. I am made to live here and to be great, but still there will be an end to my days, as with all of us that Ti-ra-wa has created upon this earth.”