MASTER ELK AND THE MOUNTAIN LION

The creators of Voices of the Wild (1993) highlight California's Tule elk (once nearly extinct) in this dramatic but sketchy vignette. Though London conveys some general information about the animal's growth and seasonal behavior, his rudimentary plot—an elk evades a mountain lion twice, once as a calf, again years later after fighting its way to master of the herd—leaps across years and ends abruptly. The close-up views of antlers and animal faces in the paintings catch the eye, but backgrounds are nearly nonexistent and much of the action described in the text— the cougar taking down an old cow, an old bull elk knocking a younger challenger off balance—occurs offstage. Books with more precise, specific observations, like Susan Bonners's Hunter in the Snow (1994), deliver clearer insight into the natural world's checks and balances. (Picture book. 5-7)