A young girl climbs the ladder up from the kiva. She looks about, unsure whom she'll see in the sudden sunlight--Anasazi Indians of 800 years ago, or her family and others on a present-day tour of Mesa Verde, Colorado. Within her, mysterious past has merged with awakened present in words and paintings of the past. Full color.
Dreamplace ANNOTATION Present-day visitors describe what they see when they visit the pueblos where the Anasazi lived long ago.
FROM THE PUBLISHER A young girl climbs the ladder up from the kiva. She looks about, unsure whom she'll see in the sudden sunlight--Anasazi Indians of 800 years ago, or her family and others on a present-day tour of Mesa Verde, Colorado. Within her, mysterious past has merged with awakened present in words and paintings of the past. Full color.
FROM THE CRITICS Publishers Weekly As in their previous collaboration Who Came Down That Road? , Lyon and Catalanotto here offer an atmospheric, shimmering glance backwards--this time at the Anasazi pueblos at Mesa Verde. Although Lyon's poem is told from the point of view and in the tone of a reflective adult, Catalanotto wisely focuses the story through his luminous paintings on the experiences of a girl who visits the canyon as a tourist. She imagines--as if she were dreaming, seeing through the scrim of historical time--the Pueblo people who 800 years before ``plaited sandals, wove baskets / coiled clay into pots.'' Then, ``one day / when even trees were hungry / they turned their backs'' on their cliff dwellings ``leaving us / far in the future'' standing ``amazed / at the people / who built this dream / who lit its walls / with fire and stories.'' In both style and content, the lyrical text may be a bit sophisticated for young readers, but Catalanotto's extraordinary watercolors clarify this journey through time. Ages 4-7. (Mar. )
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