You Are Home: An Ode to the National Parks begins by honoring the parks' animals: "To the chipmunk in her burrow,/ sleeping beneath the leaves to keep warm;/ to the resilient bison in the streaming oases/ of an endless winter:/ you are home." The book goes on to include the human animal: "To the child in the city,/ surrounded by windows,/ noise, and crowds;/ to the child on the farm,/ surrounded by endless fields;/ you are home," and so on. Finally, the book defines its terms: "A home's walls may topple,/ its floors might crack,/ but what keeps a home standing/ can never be broken:/ a sense of belonging, sung by the streams, from valleys to peaks, over thousands of miles,/ through millions of hearts."
This lyrical tribute demands art to match, and Ezra Jack Keats Book Award winner Evan Turk (Muddy: The Story of Blues Legend Muddy Waters) rises to the challenge. Using pastels on black paper, Turk has created scenes that conjure a range of media: the cloudy sky above Yellowstone's bison has a watercolor-like grace; a vibrant spread devoted to Zion suggests cut-paper collage; and a masterful gatefold capturing Yosemite has a chalky glow. In his author's note, Turk writes that most of the book's illustrations are based on drawings he did while visiting 20 of the 25 featured parks. (The name of each park is unobtrusively printed in the corresponding art's corner.) You Are Home is a gallant rebuke to the expression "You had to be there." --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author