Here Is the Southwestern Desert Book

Despite its stark landscape and harsh climate, the Sonoran Desert teems with life. Hare, hawks, lizards, bobcats, badgers, coyote — all live among the desert’s fragrant mesquite and spiny cactus, and none can exist without the others. Madeleine Dunphy’s poetic text explores all the warm and native elements that make the American Southwest such a mystical place, while Anne Coe's stunning paintings portray the desert’s plants and animals as well as the dazzling colors reflected in the rocks and skies of the Sonoran Desert.

School Library Journal

K-Gr 2Information on the Sonoran desert is presented in a cumulative fashion la The House That Jack Built, e.g., ``Here is the lizard/who is spied by the hawk/that perches on the cactus/that is covered with spines...'' The narrative mentions and depicts eight animals and three plants; an end note shows these and other creatures in pen-and-ink drawings with a brief discussion of them and their environment. The book is beautifully designed. On each double-page spread, text appears in a narrow section on the left against a glowing earth-pink background; remaining space is filled with an acrylic painting saturated with dazzling desert light. Each spread is marked with solid borders, as though matted. Coe's dry-brush technique reveals the texture of the canvas in ways that make it look like grainy sand. One cavil: the obviously different prickly pear and saguaro are called by the same generic namecactus.Ruth Semrau, formerly at Lovejoy School, Allen, TX