Here's a Sunday delight for anyone who loves the desert, or even for those (like me), who had no connection to desert life until I read the picture books of Byrd Baylor, poet of the desert. Her love of and connection with desert life, including the geologic life, offered me vicarious visits and instilled my deeply felt interest in this unique habitat and its residents .
Tumbleweeds are ubiquitous in deserts and also in media depicting those regions, as well as being symbolic in literary references. Here, instead of being an unimportant backdrop item, a single tumbleweed takes center stage. It is not anthropomorphized or characterized, simply named TUMBLE, and portrayed in its natural life cycle. Even so, I was rooting for it, noting its hurdles and celebrating its successes.
In this case, the main text and charmingly authentic spreads show the life cycle of a tumbleweed and provide a visual nod to surrounding creatures and foliage. TUMBLE's capacity to survive (as a species) is reinforced by the story itself, demonstrating its adaptations to harshest conditions, durability to make reproduction possible, and capacity to spread that life cycle miles beyond its place of original growth. Simple back matter reveals a diagram of tumbleweed life cycle, a scale image of actual seed si