Crow Helps a Friend

Crow Helps a Friend is a picture book from the “Coast Salish Tales” series by author and illustrator Andrea Fritz. Fritz wrote the series to share Indigenous storytelling and ways of learning with young readers of all backgrounds. Her work, using traditional art and storytelling, brings forward her Coast Salish culture and knowledge. The story also integrates many Hul’q’umi’num’ words throughout the characters' English dialogue. A page with glossary and pronunciation is included before the story begins. The “Coast Salish Tales” focus on relationships between animals that symbolize how we, as humans, can learn and grow through our interactions.

Crow Helps a Friend begins with the crow, Q’uleeq’e, visiting the wood duck, Qwiwilh’s, nesting tree. The crow challenges the wood duck to a game where they see who can climb up to the highest branch of the tree. As they play the game, the upper branches of the tree begin to crack, and all the branches fall into the creek, along with the birds. The wood duck saves the crow, and they rise to the surface of the water together. The wood duck is sad that his nesting tree is broken. Crow seeks advice from a wise squirrel, Tth’upsiathun’, about how to find a new home for the wood duck. Squirrel gives him an acorn and helps him plant a new tree in the same spot as the old one. He assures crow that the tree was already rotting and would have fallen in the next storm. The next spring, the wood duck returns to find a new tree growing in his old spot. He is thankful for the crow’s help and happy to have made a new friend. Every year when the wood duck returns to the tree, he tells his family the story of how he and the crow became friends.

There is a note at the end of the story titled ‘Appreciating Coast Salish Art’. It is a useful section that explains how to identify the elements used in Coast Salish Art. There is also an explanation on how to avoid cultural appropriation.