Diane Siebert is the author of Mojave, a 1988 Booklist Children's Editors' Choice, a 1988 Notable Children's Trade Book in Social Studies, and a 1989 Teachers Choice, and Heartland, a 1989 Booklist Children's Editors' Choice, a 1989 Notable Children's Trade Book in Social Studies, and a 1990 Notable Children's Book in the Language Arts. Ms. Siebert lives at Crooked River Ranch, Oregon. Wendell Minor is nationally known for the artwork he has created for over sixty award-winning children's books. His many collaborators include Jean Craighead George, Robert Burleigh, Buzz Aldrin, Tony Johnston, Nikki Grimes, Mary Higgins Clark, and, last but not least, his wife, Florence. He is also the author and illustrator of My Farm Friends.
Like Siebert and Minor's two previous collaborations, Mojave and Heartland , this handsome volume celebrates nature with awe and respect--here the Sierra Nevada mountain range, which stands ``Tall and grand / . . . like a sentinel'' in the West. Siebert's tone is stately and Whitmanesque as she catalogues the history and vastness of the Sierras: ``I am the mountain. / Come and know / Of how, ten million years ago, / Great forces, moving plates of earth, / Brought, to an ancient land, rebirth.'' Minor's impressive paintings are a tribute to the beauty and interrelation of the creatures that inhabit these mountains--from the sequoias that have ``watched three thousand years go by'' to the animals that ``keep the balance on the land.'' The poem ends with a timely warning: ``And what my course of life will be / Depends on how man cares for me.'' Its jacket carrying an endorsement by the director of the Sierra Club, the book will appeal especially to those interested in environmental preservation. Ages 4-8. (Mar.)
Gr 2-4-- Siebert and Minor have surpassed their previous collaborative achievements, Mojave (1988) and Heartland (1989, both Crowell), in this their latest celebration of the American landscape. Siebert's measured, confident verses convey the majesty of the speaker, the mountain personified, Sierra herself. She relates her geological birth and the formative experience of the ice ages, and describes her present splendid appearance. Appreciatively, Sierra catalogs the rich life she shelters, supports, and observes, from the tiny pika to the big black bear and untethered eagle. On the final page a ``new force'' is introduced: MAN, ominously ``changing nature's plan,'' yet, promisingly, able to care for the mountain environment. Siebert's lyrical and moving verses are, nevertheless, all but upstaged by Minor's stunning acrylic paintings. He effectively exploits long shot, close up, unusual perspective, framing, and other techniques while employing tender color to evoke the breathtaking beauty of his subject. Minor relies on the sculptural strength of his compositions to balance the unabashed romanticism of his vision. There is a siren's-song quality to this lovely book. Readers sensitive to its power might well feel how tragically possible it is for us to love our wilderness to death. --Patricia Dooley, University of Washington, Seattle
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