[Ellis is a Canadian author of children's books, an educator, and a children's librarian. In the following excerpt, she applauds King's storytelling abilities and his focus on history, Native themes, and the marginalization of indigenous peoples in A Coyote Columbus Story.]

"At the margins is where the meanings are." This conviction, expressed by writer Thomas King, struck a chord in me, as I suspect it would for many children's writers and readers of children's books. The subversive quality of many "classic" children's books has been ably elucidated by Alison Lurie, and I think that quality, a quiet acceptance of alternative values, lives on in children's books even in this mass-market, "hit-driven," conservative publishing climate. King is better known as an adult writer, and the context of his remark was a response to an interview question about the motivation behind his oblique, playful, pun-filled, allusive style. But in his children's book A Coyote Columbus Story, King exhibits the same joyful celebration of life on the margins.

Last year's many debates on the occasion of the Columbus anniversary seemed to allow little room for a middle ground. Either Columbus, the textbook hero, "discovered" America or he was the first step in the ruination of that world. King provides a fresh perspective by moving the question from the arena of logical debate to the arena of pure story.

In A Coyote Columbus Story—and the indefinite article is significant—the whole mess is Coyote's fault. Coyote is the creator: "It was Coyote who fixed up this world, you know. She is the one who did it. She made rainbows and flowers and clouds and rivers. And she made prune juice and afternoon naps and toenail polish and television commercials." But she is far from infallible. In fact, this girl just wants to have fun. And fun is baseball.

But Coyote has trouble rustling up a team. The animals are too busy and earnest. So Coyote creates humans, who are initially keen on the game but get fed up with Coyote's arbitrary rule changes. Bored and distracted, Coyote then creates some new players. These turn out to be Christopher Columbus and his crew. Again Coyote is disappointed. This group has no interest in baseball: "We got work to do, they says. We got to find India. We got to find things we can sell."

Failing to find riches, Columbus and his men take slaves. The people are angry with Coyote, and she acknowledges that she made a mistake and promises to take Columbus back: "You'll see, everything will be balanced again." But her final efforts produce only Jacques Cartier and crew. Coyote, ever hopeful, greets the new gang with an invitation to play ball.

The whole story is written with a delightful abandonment of linear historical time. Anachronistic details abound. The humans reject baseball in favor of other activities: "Some of them go shopping. Some of them go sky diving. Some of them go to see big-time wrestling. Some of them go on a seven-day Caribbean cruise." The explorers list their expectations of the new world: "Yes, they says, where is that chocolate cake? Yes, they says, where are those computer games? Yes, they says, where are those music videos?" In the illustrations, by William Kent Monkman, Columbus wears Renaissance garb in lurid neon colors, and one of his crew is an Elvis impersonator. There is a moose in a bikini and curlers, a turtle in shades, and Coyote in high-tops and a jaunty pageboy hairstyle.

Woven through these high jinks, the values of the first nation's peoples are evident. The major failing of Columbus and his crew is their rudeness. Coyote laments, "These people I made have no manners. They act as if they've got no relations." The rhythm of the book is the cadence of native speech: "But you know, whenever Coyote and the human beings played ball, Coyote always won. She always won because she made up the rules. That sneaky one made up the rules, and she always won because she could do that." But what Coyote captures—a quality I've often heard in native storytelling, but less often seen expressed in print—is the spirit of cheekiness, a bold, outrageous iconoclastic energy that incorporates warmth and inclusiveness.