A girl and her father go owling on a moonlit winter night near the farm where they live. Bundled tight in wool clothes, they trudge through snow ``whiter than the milk in a cereal bowl''; here and there, hidden in ink-blue shadows, a fox, raccoon, fieldmouse and deer watch them pass. An air of expectancy builds as Pa imitates the Great Horned Owl's call once without answer, then again. From out of the darkness ``an echo/ came threading its way/ through the trees.'' Schoenherr's watercolor washes depict a New England few readers see: the bold stare of a nocturnal owl, a bird's-eye view of a farmhouse. In harmony with the art, the melodious text brings to life an unusual countryside adventure. Ages 2-6. (November)
In the County of Women is a deeply personal memoir told through the tapestry of three generations of women in one sprawling, multiracial, multiethnic extended family. Mothers, grandmothers, aunts and nieces tackle head-on the searing realities of gender, race and class oppressions, but emerge in their stories as heroines, each of an often-perilous odyssey. Its […]