Best Selling Books by Byrd Baylor

“A Native American boy captures a hawk in the hope that he can also capture some sense of its ability to fly….Parnall’s sweeping black-and-white panoramas complement this spare, poetic text.” —School Library Journal A Caldecott Honor Book An ALA Notable Book

You may think of the desert as a harsh, dry place where no one would ever want to live -- but think again. The Desert People know. so do the animals. Both love the land, and "share the feeling of being brothers in the desert, of being desert creatures together." Byrd Baylor''s spare, poetic text and Peter Parnall''s striking illustrations lime the sky, stone and sand of the desert in this haunting book.

Everybody needs a rock -- at least that''s the way this particular rock hound feels about it in presenting her own highly individualistic rules for finding just the right rock for you.

With a lot of practice, a young boy learns from his old teacher how to listen to the sounds and songs of the natural world. When you know “the other way to listen,” you can hear the wild-flower seed bursting open. You hear rocks murmuring and hills singing, and it seems like the most natural thing in the world. Of course, it takes a lot of practice, and you can’t be in a hurry. Most people never hear these things at all. This is the story of an old man who had a special way of hearing and of a child who hoped to learn his secrets. Byrd Baylor and Peter Parnall have combined their unique, award-winning talents to celebrate the world of nature.

Byrd Baylor''s text captures and shares some of the special experiences in the Southwest desert country that have inaugurated her private celebrations: The Time of Falling Stars, in the middle of August, when "every time a streak of light goes shooting through the darkness, I feel my heart shoot out of me"; Rainbow Celebration Day, marking the time she and a jackrabbit stood together watching a triple-rainbow over a canyon; and the real New Year''s Day (January first is "just another winter day"), the day spring begins. "I celebrate with horned toads and ravens and lizards and quail...And, Friend, it''s not a bad party."

Pieces of broken pots are scattered over the desert hillsides of the Southwest. The Indians there treat them with respect -- "Every piece of clay is a piece of someone''s life," they say. And the children try to imagine those lives that took place in the desert they think of as their own. Clay has its own small voice, and sings. Its song has lasted for thousands of years. And Byrd Baylor''s prose-poem as simple and powerful as the clay pots, sings too.

Beautiful paintings highlight the ways various peoples from around the world welcome the sun and the start of a new day in this Caldecott Honor–winning picture book. Some people say there is a new sun every day, and that it begins its life at dawn and lives for one day only. They say you have to welcome it. From cavemen, to the Aztecs, to the ancient Egyptians, Baylor Bird describes the ways that people throughout history and the world celebrated the dawn. By the end you may be inspired to create your own song for the sunrise.

On the hottest summer afternoons when desert creatures look for shade and stay close to the earth and keep their voices low I sit high on a cactus and fling my loud ringing trill out to the sun... So sings the Cactus Wren, one of the ten desert creatures that speaks for itself in the evocative and lyrical verses of Desert Voices. In both text and illustration, Desert Voices conveys a message of spirit and courage from the shy and quiet creatures of the beautiful desert land.

A band of men sat huddled in a cave Where coals of fire glowed warm and red. Boy lay curled on a bed of leaves But he sat up when an old man said: "This thought keeps spinning in my head. There must be caves just like our own Somewhere And other axes made of stone Somewhere And other men like me." Though only Boy shares his dream, the old man leaves the tribe to search for what the world may hold. Boy does the old man''s work in his absence and watches hopefully for his return... For any good thing Can happen when The world is full of Tribes of men Who know that they have brothers. First published in 1965 and long out of print, Byrd Baylor''s powerful story is newly illustrated with Ronald Himler''s vigorous yet tender pictures.

A girl discovers that her impoverished family is rich in things that matter in life, especially being outdoors and experiencing nature.

Cave drawings prompt questions about the lives and purposes of their prehistoric creators.

These legends and folktales were told to the compiler.

Desperately wanting a pet to love, a boy decides to tame a prairie dog who has already decided to tame the boy for his own pet.

A fossil hunter looking for signs of an ancient sea in the rocks of a western Texas mountain describes how the area must have looked millions of years ago.