CM Magazine: Canyon.

________________ CM . . . . Volume VIII Number 21 . . . . June 21, 2002

cover Canyon.
Eileen Cameron. Photographs by Michael Collier.
New York, NY: Mikaya Press (Distributed in Canada by Firefly Books), 2002.
32 pp., cloth, $24.95.
ISBN 1-931414-03-3.
Subject Headings:
Canyons-Juvenile poetry.
Children's poetry-American.
American Poetry.
Grades 3-6 / Ages 8-11.

Review by Gail Hamilton

**** /4

exerpt:

...and crashes through boulders
and with mallets of masses of pebbles
and with sandy razors of silt
it carves out the stone.

Breathtaking, stunning, awe-inspiring - these are just a few of the words which can be used to describe the photographs in Cameron's debut children's book. Three short introductory paragraphs, alone on a pale yellow background, cause the reader to focus on the text and add to the sense of drama as the reader turns the first page. So begins the journey of a drop of water as it falls down the mountaintop and gathers momentum along the way. Cameron's lyrical prose, its words carefully chosen, also gathers momentum as the water erodes the rock, causing fissures, gorges, valleys and chasms to form over millions of years. The text is strong, matching the visual power of the photographs and the water of which it speaks. Towards the end of the book, the author deliberately slows the text down, perhaps building toward the climax - the creation of the final masterpiece, the canyon. Collier superbly captures the feeling of the text through his marvellous photographs, taken along the Colorado River and the many streams.

Highly Recommended.

Gail Hamilton is a teacher-librarian at Bird's Hill School in East St. Paul, MB.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

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