LOON LAKE

“Rain Bird, Rain Goose, Call-up-a-Storm. These are names native people of the North give to the loon. That is what Papa tells me.” Seeing a loon’s arrival, a child and her father paddle out for a closer look—and because they keep a respectful distance, they’re rewarded with not one loon, but an entire family. The child’s father paraphrases a Tsimshian tale explaining how the loon got its speckles, and for further atmosphere, Ford places dividers of Northwest Coastal patterns between the text and her serene, smoothly brushed, realistically drawn moonlit scenes. London’s (What the Animals Were Waiting For, below, etc.) afterword to this hushed, briefly told encounter adds some natural history (along with a debatable derivation for “loony”), but for children who want to know more about these shy, beautiful birds, pair this with Barbara Juster Esbensen’s Great Northern Diver: The Loon, illustrated by Mary Barrett Brown (1990). (Picture book. 6-8)