![]() ![]() I don’t know how hollyhocks smell, but in my mind’s prairie eye it smells cool and refreshing. As morning keeps going we see a young boy lying in the field with a dog and some hollyhocks. A young girl wakes up with the windows open and a sky as big as you’ve ever seen on the other side. It takes place during a typical summer day. The beauty of Prairie Days is that the book makes you want to visit the prairie even if you haven’t heard of it before now. To me, a prairie has a lifestyle and personality unto its own. I have been the country, but the country is different than the prairie. I imagine it to be this farm area that exists someplace that’s outside of the city. To that, credit goes to the author, Patricia MacLachlan and Micha Archer, who did the illustrations. Others will be attracted to the succinct poetry stanzas and then realize just how perfectly the art goes along with them. Some people who read Prairie Days will come for the art and stay for the words. It all but leaves wet footprints in your house from the pond, with just a couple traces of dirt and rogue straws of hay strewn about the area where kids have tracked them in. Think of a hot, summer day on the prairie and this book scorches its way into your memory. It requires a balance of content, art, pacing, text and unquantifiable characteristics that are combined into a book that reaches audiences regardless of where they live or what they do. Perfect is a relative thing for an illustrated book. ![]()
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