WIDDERMAKER

Look out, Pecos Bill: here comes Cowpoke Pete, the newest hero of the Wild West. Told in a style as rollicking and rowdy as the opening sequence to Monday Night Football, this entry into the tall-tale tradition will leave readers breathless and happily exhausted. Schnetzler (Ten Little Dinosaurs, not reviewed) leaves no stone in the desert unturned in fulfilling her no-less-high ambition of explaining how the Painted Desert, Mexican Hat, and Monument Valley came to exist. Widdermaker is the biggest, orneriest bull still undefeated and Cowpoke Pete just doesn’t accept that any varmint can’t be beaten. So he lassos the “meanest, low-downest bull” and he and his trusty horse, Desert Rose, go for a ride neither will ever forget, leaving a transformed landscape in their wake. Just in case this raucous read aloud doesn’t get you, newcomer Sealock’s illustrations will. Though the art’s not to everyone’s taste, the high drama of the colors, elongated and distorted figures, and splashy paint convey the gigantic energy and high adventure that carries the narrative to its crescendo. Try to stay on if you can. (Picture book. 5-8)