RIGHT HERE ON THIS SPOT

This impressive picture book shares a history of the land and its people with a grandfather on a tractor drive through his cabbage field. The items that turn up are a chipped stone tool from the time of the mastodon, a lost arrowhead from centuries later, and a Civil War button. The brief main text is lyrical and thoughtful, while the author concludes with a note describing how Paleo-Indians came to the shores of Lake Michigan during the Ice Age; how the Illinois and Potawatomi Indians came after the glaciers melted; and how trappers, frontiersmen, and homesteaders came still later to build the farms and houses still in existence in Wisconsin and Michigan. Soft gray pencil drawings and double-page watercolors amplify the text; Clapp is especially adept at capturing the sweep of sky and the brown earth of the farm in broad bands of color, maximizing the impact of the medium. An appealing introduction to archaeology, and to the concept of continuity through the passing of time. (Picture book. 6-10)