TALL IN THE SADDLE

A father is not going off to the office in the morning, his son fantasizes; instead, he’s riding the range tall in the saddle, rounding up cattle rustlers. Carter’s Wild West make-believe works as a vignette about a father-son cowboy fantasy, but is less successful in conveying what in the story is or is not pretend. When the father pedals off to work on a stolen bike, it appears his son thinks of the bikes as horses and they’re off on a cattle round-up. First they hogtie tattletale Jen and mean-mouthed Ben (siblings? friends? Is the father justified in going along with their poor treatment?); around the bend lurk cattle thieves, but these two cowboys fend them off. McPhail’s illustrations have both realistic and dreamy qualities to them that match the story’s mood, yet with the elements of this daydream so poorly defined, the fantasy never takes off. (Picture book. 4-6)