Occasionally, not often enough, in the world of young people's books—or anyone's—there appears a timeless work which defies delimiting of audience. Such a book is Anpao, a synthesis of native American folklore….

[Highwater] has woven across the main threads of his legendary hero's quest a significant weft of American Indian mythology, just as Homer in his famous epic of a Greek's journey homeward from Troy introduced tales of supernatural encounters which extended the dangers of that voyage.

None of these tales, says Highwater, is of his own invention, although the words are new, his own. Most exist in many versions, but in his meticulous bibliography of sources he cites at least one book in which each tale can be read in its oral form. Some of these are ancient; some emerged out of experiences after the invasion by white men….

[Not] only the uniqueness and significance...