America

This eclectic book hints at the country's immense range of landscape and, implicitly, of people; illustrations by 14 artists from different ethnic and racial backgrounds establish a corresponding diversity of styles. Nikola-Lisa's (Bein' with You This Way) minimal text presents opposites--"wood land/ farm land," for example, and "wet land/ dry land"--although readers may need to puzzle over the various illustrations to decipher how they demonstrate the contrast between "straight land/ round land" or even "low land/ high land." Among especially evocative illustrations, Michelle Reiko Kumata's soulful painting for "young land/ old land" shows a young girl and an old man in a boat, with background images suggesting the man's history as an emigrant, and Huy Lee's inventive, brightly lit photocollage for "hard land/ soft land" brings out the contrasts between urban streets and the small park enclosed by them. However, the art is uneven and the text does not integrate the range of styles in any meaningful way. An appendix profiles the illustrators, who supply explanations of their works. Their varied interpretations of the book's project--some sought to capture personal memories, others to explore such pressing concerns as poverty and the environment, another simply to note contrasting climates--create a conceptual cacophony. The result of this melee of agendas, as well as of styles, is a bit of a multicultural free-for-all. Ages 5-up. (May)

Gr 2-6--Each of Nikola-Lisa's contrasting word combinations--"Wood Land/Farm Land," "Wet Land/Dry Land"--are set on juxtaposed pages beneath a picture drawn by one of 14 contributing artists. This format gives children the opportunity to extend the varied images with their own poems, essays, stories, and drawings, but the renderings can result in some confusion. Some artists depict the joint concepts on two opposing single pages (Keunhee Lee paints a beach scene for "Hot Land" and a snowy one for "Cold Land"), while others have chosen to illustrate their word pairings in one continuous spread. For instance, to picture "Straight Land/Round Land," Felicia Marshall uses a double-page scene of a fairground that includes both straight and round objects. The word "Straight," however, appears under the part of the picture showing balloons while "Round" is found under rows of cars. Only when reading the appended remarks from the illustrator do readers learn that Marshall chose the scene because she remembers how, as a child, "flat farm land changed into round land with the arrival of the county fair." In all cases, the commentaries are illuminating and sometimes become mandatory to understanding the presentation. With this in mind, enterprising adults will slip in a cassette of "This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land," and with a copy of America in hand, celebrate the diversity of this great country.--Barbara Elleman, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI