PRAIRIE DOG PIONEERS

Young Mae Dean is stunned when her father announces that he is moving his family from their home and manicured yard with the tree swing to the Texas Panhandle where they will have their own land and sod hut. During the journey she suspects that her father put her in danger during a nerve-wracking attempt to reach high ground in a ferocious storm. She nurses this hurt for several weeks until her father makes her see the light—he was saving them all from flood. It’s an odd plot element when sustained for the length of the story. Although the authors express their enthusiasm for the Texas Panhandle in this affectionate tribute to a Harper ancestor, this is a fairly conventional pioneer story. Spearing’s art recalls the charm of woodcuts, with stylized and tidy landscapes, structures, and people. (Picture book. 5-8)