THE BIG EMPTY

In a near-empty land, sagebrush survives.

Sagebrush, home and food for wild creatures in the “nowhere land” of the American West, describes its world. As an RV passing through leaves dust in its wake, Fagan’s poetic first-person narrative carries readers through a slim story that documents the food and shelter sagebrush provides for desert-dwelling animals, as well as a devastating fire and subsequent recovery. “I am hope,” the sagebrush asserts, sending down long roots and “bloom[ing] bursts of yellow.” “I am life.” Fagan’s striking artwork is just as integral as her meditative text. The author/illustrator, who honed her equine-drawing skills with Rosanne Parry’s novel A Horse Named Sky (2023), includes wild horses on several pages. Readers will also spot pronghorns, greater sage-grouse, pygmy rabbits, and sage thrashers (identified and expounded upon in the backmatter). The two-level text—consisting of words in a smaller font and brief statements in a larger, seemingly handwritten font—takes up little space on these spreads, which reflect the vastness of the landscape. The images have the look of pastels, done mostly in shades of brown, culminating in a striking fire that leaves the land gray and barren before the hardy plant returns. The words read aloud smoothly, and the images will show well, making Kirby’s auspicious authorial debut a good choice for small-group sharing.

A dramatic depiction of an unusual ecosystem.