An American Safari: Adventures on the North American Prairie

Grade 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, ID
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