Review by Booklist Review
PreS-Gr. 1. In this illustrated tribute to the campfire favorite Home on the Range, a pajama-clad boy gazes out of his New York apartment window as the song's opening lines hint of Wild West adventures to come. Clouds materialize into longhorns as the droopy-drawered buckaroo daydreams of nondiscouraging words. The boy then plays with his cowboy-and-Indian toys until nighttime, when he gazes at a cowboy hat constellation and presto! He's catapulted into the night sky on the back of his rocking-horse steed. Once in the home of the free (it is daylight there), the wide-eyed boy chases a flying cowboy hat, startles livestock, hears the curlew scream (haven't heard that verse, eh?), and returns to bed before sunrise--but not without the hat. Ajhar's wispy, moody, yet comical acrylic-and-pencil paintings are soft as a dreamscape and bring new life to this classic song of longing. Somewhat murky stories of the song's nineteenth-century origins are included, followed by four stanzas of one particular version and the musical score for inspired crooners. --Karin Snelson Copyright 2004 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A boy's daydreams take him Home on the Range in Brian Ajhar's (The Giggle Treatment) imaginative interpretation of the song lyrics. Clad in blue footie pajamas, the young hero rides his rocking horse and watches the antelope play-as clouds over the New York City skyline outside his window. But when night comes, he is transported out West to herd steers "where the skies are not cloudy all day." Ajhar's acrylic and pencil illustrations aptly convey both the boy's infatuation with the plains and his trepidation when he finds himself en route. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3-In this picture-book version of the song, a toddler imagines the clouds forming into cattle as he rides his rocking horse into the sunset from a city apartment terrace. Just before bedtime, he sits on his bedroom floor in the middle of his self-constructed Western town, complete with horse and wagon, cowboys on horseback, Indians and tents, and cattle roaming free, for one more round of play. Once in bed, he sees stars outside his window in the outline of a cowboy hat and zap!-across the sky he's racing on his rocking horse in the middle of a herd of cattle, trying to catch the now-materialized hat. His chase propels him across the range and through the remaining three verses of the song. Sheet music and the complete lyrics are provided at the end. The colorful acrylic-and-pencil illustrations are humorously appropriate for this fantasy life on the range, but the pajamas with a button-down back flap that the little boy wears look dated. It's unlikely that toddlers will relate to the song, and older children are likely to be turned off by the young protagonist.-Wanda Meyers-Hines, Ridgecrest Elementary School, Huntsville, AL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Using the familiar song for text, the accompanying illustrations show a young urban cowboy who rides his rocking horse into the night sky chasing after a cowboy hat, lassos a bull, picks wildflowers, watches antelope herds, then rides back to his bedroom. The vague, thin narrative of the cutesy art (which resembles animation storyboards) makes for an odd match to the repetitive lyrics. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Leaving behind a bedroom strewn with elaborately detailed toys, a New York lad clad in a Stetson and pj's rides his rocking horse out west for some riding and roping "where the skies are not cloudy all day." Ajhar uses four verses of the 19th-century original's six (the song has had several versions over the years, none of which are credited here), reprised with a new musical arrangement at the end. His visual interpretation isn't particularly literal--there are plenty of deer playing, but no antelope, and lines like "Where the air is so pure, the zephyrs so free / The breezes so balmy and light" sound odd coming from the preschool-aged protagonist. But the cattle have mobile, expressive countenances, and even children already home on the range will respond to the ditty's eminently singable sentiment. (Picture book. 5-7) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
