Review by Booklist Review
Reminiscent of George and Minor's The Wolves Are Back (2008), this handsome book discusses the history of the buffalo on the American plains. Succinctly and gracefully written, it envisions the centuries when Indians carefully managed the land, using the buffalo for food, shelter, and clothing. In the 1800s, government policies brought about the destruction of the tall-grass prairie, the shooting of the American buffalo, and the end of the Plains Indians' traditional way of life. In the early twentieth century, Teddy Roosevelt facilitated efforts to protect the few remaining buffalo. After the 1930s Dust Bowl, farming methods were changed and, eventually, some prairie lands were replanted with native grasses, enabling the return of many buffalo to prairie preserves. The book concludes with a few of the illustrator's sources as well as a list of places to visit in person or online, but no sources for the text, even for the quote from Chief Sitting Bull. Illustrated with beautiful landscape paintings and striking close-ups of people and animals, this book offers a very effective presentation of the buffalo's story.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
From the creators of The Wolves Are Back, this graceful story explores how the American buffalo almost became extinct. Minor's striking naturalistic paintings of buffalo and a dust bowl landscape mirror George's sturdy, reflective prose: "When the buffalo lived on the prairie, their sharp hooves helped rain reach down into the earth, and the tough roots of the grass held in the wet." Theodore Roosevelt's establishment of the National Bison Range offers hope for buffalo, and in a moving final spread, a Wichita Indian man counting buffalo for the census welcomes "America's two hundred thousand and eighty-first buffalo" calf. A tribute to an American icon and to the power of preservation. Ages 5-8. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 4-With the call of the meadowlark and the bawling of a newborn bison calf opening Jean Craighead George's book (Dutton, 2010), the symbiotic relationship of the buffalo, the American Indian, and the grass are chronicled. The almost complete demise of the American bison and the tall grass prairie in the mid 1800s is described, as well as their comeback through the efforts of environmentalists such as Teddy Roosevelt. The story successfully combines fiction and non-fiction elements to present the history and future of the land and its occupants. Wendell Minor, whose beautiful watercolor illustrations enhance the text, also simply narrates the story in a tone that reflects the prairie. Of special note is the music of Chris Kubie that evokes the atmosphere of the setting through the use of the flute and other instruments. Other sound effects, particularly the meadowlark song, transport listeners to a gentler time and place. Page-turn signals are optional, and well-placed pauses give listeners/readers time to peruse the book.-Ann Brownson, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
In George's latest compact ecodrama, a counterpart to The Wolves Are Back (rev. 5/08), we see the buffalo slaughtered to decimate the Indians and open the prairie to settlers-who tear up the prairie grasses and plant crops such as wheat and corn, with shallow, fragile roots, that fall prey to grasshoppers and drought until, "in just over fifty years," the prairie soil crumbles to dust. But we are only a third of the way through the book. From the somber Dust Bowl migrants, we turn immediately to the reversal: the discovery, instigated by President Theodore Roosevelt, of three hundred remaining wild buffalo, where once there had been seventy-five million. For the rest, it's a story of alert people-including a Kansas schoolgirl who finds a six-foot blade of buffalo grass in her (never plowed) schoolyard-and accessible places. One is the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve, in Kansas (particulars can be found on the appended list of places to visit). With illustrations that both document and dramatize, another small triumph from a seasoned team. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Beginning and ending with the joyous birth of a calf, George describes the eradication of bison from the American plains, subsequent ecosystem damage, return of the species and restoration of the tall grass prairie in this companion to The Wolves Are Back (2008). The author makes the interconnections between the animals and the native prairie grasses clear, emphasizing her point through repetition. Explaining that the eradication of the buffalo was a strategy for wiping out the Plains Indians, George's sympathies are evident. She quotes Sioux Chief Sitting Bull's description of the buffalo's disappearance as "a death-wind for my people" and points out that the dust storms that followed were a death wind for settlers as well. Unfortunately, the book strays into fiction when a young Wichita Indian buffalo-censustaker watches a new calf at the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve, whose herd of only 13 (not 300) bison was reintroduced only in the fall of 2009 and has not yet grown. Minor's expressive and lushly detailed paintings have texture and depth, supporting and enhancing the text. Environmental good news. (sources, websites) (Informational picture book. 5-10) ]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
