I'm in Charge of Celebrations

Byrd Baylor

I'm in Charge of Celebrations 
Byrd Baylor  Peter Parnall (Illustrator)

I'm in Charge of Celebrations

Synopsis
A dweller in the desert celebrates a triple rainbow, a chance encounter with a coyote, and other wonders of the wilderness. "Grades one to four." (SLJ)

Annotation
"Sharing the phenomenon of a triple rainbow with a jackrabbit . . . spying a meteor shooting like a fireball across the night's sky--these are the fleeting, natural events the author extols in her . . . poetic prose that begs to be read aloud. . . ."--Booklist, starred review.

From the Publisher
From the highly acclaimed team of Byrd Baylor and Peter Parnall comes the story of a girl who shares her love for desert life as she tells of treasured experiences like dancing in the wind on Dust Devil Day or sleeping outside on a hot summer night during The Time of the Falling Stars. Baylor's radiant prose-poem and Parnall's exquisite illustrations combine to create a joyous celebration of the human spirit.

 From the Critics
From Publisher's Weekly - Publishers Weekly  
According to PW, ``Danziger's witty sequel to Remember Me to Harold Square has all of the zip of that novelplus the historically rich setting of London.'' Ages 10-14. (Oct.)
 
From School Library Journal  
Gr 1-4 Another collaboration set in the desert from this author/artist team. The styles are consistent: typically twin columns of very short lines of prose set into double-page spreads of intense colors and large white spaces. This is a paean to the forces of nature active in the desert, and a young woman's love of her environment that motivates many private celebrations: Coyote Day, Dust Devil Day, The Time of Falling Stars. The words are personal descriptions of responses to events. The images, however, are much more universal, abstract visualizations. Again the black line helps define horizons, animals, and dust devils (whirlwinds), but it's the sweep of pure color shapes appearing almost stenciled in their sharp-edgedness that will grab children's attention. Parnall can make his audience see empty space as solid form, can juxtapose a red against a pale blue and set the page on fire. But he can also add travel poster cacti that destroy the mysticism of his suggestive abstractions. Still, the partnership thrives in this latest work. Kenneth Marantz, Art Education Department, Ohio State University, Columbus
 
From Margaret Tsuda - The Christian Science Monitor (Eastern edition)  
Bold, poster-color shapes zoom across doubled pages in stylized evocations of the Southwestern desert of the United States, where a girl lives and keeps a record of wonderful moments--like the time she saw a rabbit watching a triple rainbow. This particular event became for her Rainbow Celebration Day, which falls on Aug. 9. A nice idea.