Where the buffaloes begin /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"Over the blazing campfires, where the wind moaned eerily through the thickets of juniper and fir, they spoke of it in the Indian tongue--the strange lake to the southward whose waters never rest. And Nawa, the medicine man, who had lived such countless moons that not even the oldest member of his people could remember a time when Nawa was not old, declared that, if only you arrived at the right time, on the right night, you would see the buffaloes rise out of the middle of the lake and come crowding to the shore; for there, he said, was the sacred spot where the buffaloes began."
Ten-year-old Little Wolf, an imaginative and courageous boy, is determined to observe this spectacle, and his quest leads not only to a miraculous vision but also to the salvation of his tribe. This Caldecott Honor picture book and National Book Award nominee was hailed by Booklist as "an eminent picture book and, incidentally, one that proves that black and white can move as forcefully as color." The New York Times praised artist Stephen Gammell for his "spectacular scenes of tumbling clouds, of earth churned by flying hoofs, of teepees in the early dawn. But most of all he conveys the hulking, surging, rampaging strength of the shaggy buffaloes as they rise out of a shadowy mist, the mist of legend or dream."

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

A Caldecott Honor is among the awards won by the late Baker's story, originally published in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1915. Little Wolf rides on his pony at night to the lake where, legend has it, a buffalo herd arises and thunders across the prairie. The boy guides the buffaloes, and they defeat enemies out to attack his people; thus Little Wolf becomes part of the tale he loves. PW remarked that ``Gammell's drawings, full of haunting visions and action, surpass his most admired work.'' (610) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Book Review

In a large, square (10fl"" x 10fl"") picture-book format, accompanied by cloudy, misty, moody gray-toned illustrations, is a story published in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1915--that happens to be, moreover, quite demanding to read. (The type-lines are long; the vocabulary is what we would now call adult; the sentence-structure is complex.) It takes off from a putative Indian legend, of buffaloes rising out of a ""strange lake to the south""; and centers on ten-year-old Little Wolf's journey to the lake and spontaneous summoning of the buffaloes--""because he could not help himself, because he loved them as the creatures of his dreams."" They stampede; he heads homeward; ""the great gallop"" crushes the attacking enemies of his people, the Assiniboins; and he, we're told in an after-word, is thereafter hailed as his people's savior. The writing does have a certain measured, mesmerizing intensity--and, as embodied, this is the Indian Mystique incarnate. But as a book it's mostly a token of respect--not quite right for any reader, too solemn and slow-moving to be successfully read aloud. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Born in England in the 1870s, Olaf Baker moved to the United States in 1902 and traveled for many years throughout the West, chiefly in the territory of the Blackfoot Indians. Inspired by the wilderness, he wrote a series of popular novels, including Shasta of the Wolves, Thunder Boy, and Dusty Star.

Stephen Gammell has illustrated nearly sixty children's books since his first, A Nutty Business by Ida Chittum, in 1973. He has won the Caldecott Medal (for Song and Dance Man by Karen Ackerman) and has been awarded a Caldecott Honor (for Where the Buffaloes Begin by Olaf Baker). Gammell is particularly well known for the surreal, unsettling illustrations he provided for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark , a series of short horror stories by Alvin Schwartz. He and his wife, photographer Linda Gammell, live in St. Paul, Minnesota.