Go West!

Not since Horace Greeley has the American West had such a vocal advocate. Working in acrylic painted on metal and brushed to weather-beaten effect, Nakamura blends fact, fable, and fantasy in a vision that goes well beyond the West being a place where the deer and antelope play. "Go west! Where alarm clocks have legs and feathers," he writes, hand-drawing the text as a rooster's crow; nearby, celestial objects dot the dust at the bird's feet, a campfire coffeepot runs off on two legs, and a hybrid dog/cowboy hat dreams of bacon and eggs. Nakamura's flattened, stylized figures evoke the artistic traditions of Native peoples, yet contemporary influences are equally present; bright blue "coyotes dance the two step" dressed in cowboy boots, while a rattlesnake forms a kind of one-reptile band, its forked tongue transformed into a tuning fork. Aliens and wolves howl at full moons, armadillos and lizards swap tall tales around a fire, and a cowgirl blasts off in her rocket boots--it's a vibrantly imagined and illustrated tribute to the magic of the West and its wide-open spaces. Ages 3-6. (Aug.)

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