First-time author Maripat Perkins's charming picture book stars a redheaded cowgirl with a hound-dog sidekick who's adjusting to a new sibling.
Just as Caldecott honor artist Molly Idle (Flora and the Flamingo; Flora and the Penguin) used dance and figure skating as visual metaphors for friendship, here she makes the most of cowgirl attire and lingo to describe the plight of a big sister. Rodeo Red names her new brother Sideswiping Slim (Idle dresses them in similar attire, hinting at their kindred spirits), and describes how the baby disrupts her paradise ("Rusty and me had always been happier than two buttons on a new shirt"). Her parents transform into "the Sheriff and her Deputy," and Slim seems always to "have the law on his side." Idle shows Rodeo Red swinging open saloon-like doors, and discovering her spurs missing and grape jelly on her favorite hat. Then one day comes the last straw: Rusty, her stuffed hound, goes missing. Rodeo Red knows "Slim was up to his sideswiping ways." A series of full-page and panel sequences chronicle the big sister's rescue attempts, which result in a sentence in a "holding cell" (a spindle chair labeled "Time Out"). When Aunt Sal sends a belated birthday gift of a stuffed cat (seen on TV in an earlier illustration), an idea takes hold under Rodeo Red's ten-gallon hat.
Perkins characterizes Rodeo Red as a stand-up sister. She tries to reason with Slim and, though she resorts to some drastic measures, in the end, she makes a fair trade with her brother. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness