An American Safari: Adventures On The North American Prairie

An American Safari: Adventures on the North American Prairie

From School Library JournalGrade 3-5-This personal photo-essay highlights the joy of being a wildlife photographer and the importance, if not critical need, to save the North American prairie and its inhabitants. The book features moving, lively writing with a strong pro-Nature Conservancy message. The excellent photography is clear, colorful, interesting, aesthetic, and informative. Useful material about prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets, bison, and a little on badgers and coyotes is included in Brandenburg's anecdotal story about his career and deep concern for the American prairie. His adventure with a rattlesnake he is photographing is riveting material for a booktalk. Other more evenhanded titles on this subject for this age level are Ron Hirschi's Save Our Prairies and Grasslands (Delacorte, 1994), Lynn M. Stone's Prairies (Rourke, 1989), and Frank Staub's America's Prairies (Carolrhoda, 1993). Those titles are more for reports; this one is more inspirational. David Bouchard's If You're Not from the Prairie... (Atheneum, 1995) is a new narrative with paintings that could be used as a companion piece in a program.Susannah Price, Boise Public Library, IDCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.A collection of full-color photographs depicts the endangered lands and animals of the American prairie lands and is accompanied by the author's own experiences and his personal entreaty to renew ecological preservation efforts.From BooklistGr. 4^-6. Similar in format to the author/photographer's To the Top of the World: Adventures with Arctic Wolves (1993), this book features a topic closer to home. Mingling facts with personal reflections, Brandenburg acquaints readers with the habitat that inspired him to become a nature photographer: the American prairie. Besides describing the experiences that led him to hunt with his camera rather than with traps and guns, he introduces various types of prairies, the animals that live there, what threatens their habitat, and how it can be saved. The descriptions of bison and prairie dogs are quite informative, but young readers will probably find Brandenburg's encounter with a rattlesnake the most memorable part of the book. Excellent, full-color photographs appear on nearly every page, illustrating the text clearly and sometimes stealing the show. The editor's name on the title page is an unusual but welcome addition. A good resource for children studying the prairie ecosystem. Carolyn Phelan