COWPOKES

PLB 0-688-13974-4 Stutson’s rhymed depiction of the cowboy’s life on the range is merry, but the watercolor locales steal the show. The text is unintrusive: “Rising slowly, cowpokes wake./Boots and vests and leather chaps./Bright bandanna. Cow poke hats./Eating flapjacks stack by stack.” San Souci sets the cowpokes’ actions the big open: mesas in the distance, aromatic sage, the blue sky high and wide. His cowpokes (among them, Austin, who is “quieter than a hole in the ground,”) are good time, strong-jawed caricatures. These pages offer a notion of how cowboys spend their days and a distinct sense of the Western landscape, which beckons enticingly. It is a fusion of text and art that works admirably well. (Picture book. 2-4)