THE AMAZING IMPOSSIBLE ERIE CANAL

The book of choice for middle-grade readers embarking on the topic, this fills the gap between Peter Spier's illustrated song- text (The Erie Canal, Doubleday, 1970) and the factual detail of R. Conrad Stein's The Story of the Erie Canal (Childrens, 1985). The pages work hard. One spread encompasses a map of the canal chronicling its construction; four portraits; captioned vignettes of Niagara Falls, stairstep locks, a huge stump-pulling machine, and an aqueduct; a four-part drawing of the locks; a cross-section of the canal with towpath and bridge; and two paragraphs of the main text. Harness (Young John Quincy, 1994, etc.) is so skilled that no page appears cluttered or confusing, and with much of the information presented visually, the conception and construction of the canal are covered in eight pages. The remainder of the book is devoted to the triumphant ten-day parade of boats from Buffalo to New York City that marked the canal's completion in 1825. Intensely colored watercolor, gouache, and pencil illustrations show the canal day and night, in town and country, from vantage points high and low; more maps, diagrams, and vignettes are worked into the corners of these densely packed pages, in the author's most notable, accessible work thus far. (bibliography, music) (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-10)