YOUR OWN BEST SECRET PLACE
by Byrd Baylor & illustrated by Peter Parnall
From a team with three Caldecott Honor books to their credit, a gentle exploration of how a particular place can have special meaning. The narrator describes finding one such place in a cave under the roots of a cottonwood tree, where a previous occupant has left several brown-paper notes (``I will be back no matter what/if you are cold you can use the blanket but do not use my other stuff'') and some treasured possessions; she reminisces about other secret places ``a sandy gully cutting through the hard flat Texas earth...a whole world by itself and I was the only person three''; a boy she knows has ``fifty bales of hay [that] make mountains and tunnels and craters and caves.'' Baylor's spare, lyrical prose celebrates the magic of these private worlds, sometimes shared with a friend or other fellow creatures. Parnall's flat areas of warm color form themselves protectively around the delicately drawn ``places and the imaginative young people who treasure them. An unusual, beautifully wrought concept book. (Picture book. 6-10)