Bear Cub Book

Now really, if late Ontario Ojibway artist Leo Yerxa had actually made his 2006 picture book Ancient Thunder entirely wordless, I probably would be ranking it with a very solid five stars (and I do indeed say this as someone who is not always a fan of wordless picture books). For his, for Yerxa's artwork is most definitely awesome and inspiring, a total visual celebration of the horse and how horses have been such an important part of First Nations culture on the Canadian Prairies (or if talking about the United States of America, of course, the so-called Great Plains). And yes, Leo Yerxa's artwork, consisting of water-colour paper that has been handmade and painted to resemble the leather often worn by Prairie tribes and replete with multitudes of colourfully depicted generally galloping horses (and of course also the equally necessary and in my opinion required depictions of buffaloes, antelopes and eagles), this all has aesthetically very much entered and expanded in my innermost soul, giving a delightfully imaginative but at the same time also tinged with (historic) realism aesthetic feast and homage to Prairie tribes such as for example the Cree, the Assiniboine and the Tsuut'ina.

However, as much as I have and absolutely so truly visually adored the illustrations in Ancient Thunder, I have if truth be told found the accompanying text, whilst certainly poetic enough, also not really in any way even remotely a true and lasting compliment to and for the amazing artwork, finding Leo Yerxa's printed words often a trifle distracting from the power and glory of his pictures, and also often making me have to search for the presented text within the illustrations (and which I certainly do not with my ageing eyes appreciate all that much). And while there is of course nothing actually wrong or inappropriate regarding Leo Yerxa's printed words in Ancient Thunder, personally, I just have not found his poetic musings about horses all that interesting in and of themselves and certainly not in any manner en par with his featured illustrations, with Leo Yerxa's absolutely horsey and very much incredibly magical pictures.