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Born and raised in the city of Boston, Elsie knows no other life but the clop of horse hooves on cobblestones and the screaming of gulls at fish boats. Even after her mother’s death, the city remains her home. That is, until her father decides to flee old memories and move their little family west to the Nebraskan prairie. There, Elsie feels alone amongst the wide-open, silent skies; only her canary, Timmy Tune, keeps her company with his music. But when Timmy Tune escapes his cage ... Click here to read more.

Elsie’s Bird by Jane Yolen, illustrated by David Small

Elsie had lived in Boston all of her life.  She loved its curving streets, the horses hooves clopping on the roads, and she loved the birds that sing.  She even sang their songs back to them.  But after her mother died, her father decided to head west to Nebraska.  The two of them took a train out west, accompanied by Elsie’s new canary named Timmy Tune.  When they reached Nebraska with its wide open prairie and silence, Elsie was overwhelmed by the vastness around her.  She stayed in their sod house, only Timmy Tune bringing a smile to her face.  Then one day when her father was gone, she accidentally left Timmy Tune’s cage door open and he escaped outside.  Now Elsie had to decide whether to stay safe indoors or entre the overwhelming prairie to save her friend.

Yolen’s verse here is exceptional.  She captures Elsie’s feelings honestly, managing even in the format of a picture book to show Elsie’s perspective rather than tell it.  When Elsie discovers the beauty of the prairie for herself, the words descriptions of the noises she hears are crystalline and wondrous.  Yolen’s use of the lack of sound to impart the way that Elsie is overwhelmed is very well done.  Readers themselves will hear the sudden clamor of sounds as she realizes that the prairie is far from empty. 

Small’s watercolor illustrations are filled with movement, whether it is a moving train or blowing blades of grass.  He captures the wind, the vastness of the prairie and the mood in each illustration.  As Elsie enters the prairie, the images of the tall blades of grass that threaten her safe return are dark, tangled and mysterious.  Then when she realizes the beauty of the prairie, the sky opens wide and bright and the grass is bedecked in blooms.  His illustrations are truly married to the story, managing to capture in pictures what Yolen has written with sounds.

Highly recommended, this is a book that has great historical interest and a superb story line.  Appropriate for ages 5-7.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by:

• Fuse #8
• A Patchwork of Books

One thing I've had to review while working on first-round edits is grassland terminology (I know this is a thrilling topic and something you've been waiting all your lives to learn about, right?).

When I started my research, it all seemd pretty straightforward: a plain was a plain and a praire was a prairie. But here's where it gets confusing. As I mentioned Wednesday, the Interior Plains are made up of two distinct regions: prairies (wetter, more hilly, tall-grass) and plains (flatter, more arid). This plains region, also known as the Great Plains is -- you guessed it -- prairie land.

Interior Plains

Career Evaluations and Study of the Market

I rarely post personal things, but good news is made to be shared. This story begins a couple years ago when I was looking at what I was writing and realized I’d like to also write something about nature. I started looking for picture book ideas on nature and looking a possible publishers. I found an innovative company, Sylvan Dell Publishing.

Sylvan Dell is innovative in several ways. They developed an online ebook reader and have a grant program to make their entire bilingual catalog available to a school for a year. It’s a great public relations and marketing idea, which puts their science and math literature books in front of kids across the U.S.

Besides great marketing to the education market, they also market well to trade, especially the gift and specialty bookstores of parks and museums. Last year, I went to Sanibel Island, Florida and the local bookstore there stocked many of their ocean/beach related books. There is a wilderness area on the island to preserve the mangrove islands and various wildlife and the bookstore at the park also carried SD books.

So, I wrote a story for them and the editor, Donna German liked it. Here’s another place they are innovative. Instead of acquiring books throughout the year, they hold manuscripts until near the end of the year. German does regular culling of mss every month or so, but winds up with about 50 manuscripts she likes. Then, the company goes through a rigorous decision process before acquiring the ten manuscripts which will comprise their next list. This process allows them to balance a year’s list in many ways. Realizing that this is a different way of deciding on manuscripts, SD accommodates the author’s needs: if your mss is being held for the annual acquisition meeting, you are still free to submit elsewhere. If you are interested in submitting, you MUST read their guidelines, as they are also unique. Expect a fast reply.

I decided that I liked their innovations in marketing to both education and trade markets, in both English and Spanish, in both hardcover and paperback. I submitted!

New Picture Book: Prairie Storms, August, 2011

My picture book, PRAIRIE STORMS, has been accepted by Sylvan Dell for a August, 2011 release. It is the story of how animals survive a year of storms on the prairie.

The illustrator will be Kathleen Rietz. I LOVE this picture, “Symphony in a Pond,” and can’t wait to see how this talented artist does the various storms and animals in the book.

Picture Book = Adventure

This picture book is already an adventure. My research on the prairies ranged far and wide, and mostly it was about those places in Kansas and farther north. But SD asked for an author’s photo, preferably something related to the topic of the book. That’s easy for someone writing about a dog. But the prairie ecosystem has dwindled so much that authentic prairie is hard to find.

Still, I took a look around and found an option. In Arkansas, the eastern alluv