Master Brooks's Bookses: Whose Tail on the Trail at Grand Canyon

Whose Tail... is published by the Grand
Canyon Association, a group of very
nice people who work to preserve and
protect Grand Canyon National Park.

             My Mamaw and Papaw recently visited the Grand Canyon. I didn’t get to go with them, but they brought me a really neat book, entitled Whose Tail on the Trail at Grand Canyon, written by Midji Stephenson and illustrated by Kenneth Spengler.

            Reading Whose Tail... isn’t as exciting as visiting the park in person, but it’s close! Colorful drawings capture the grandeur and diversity of the canyon and its inhabitants. And the pictures of the “critters” are so accurate that I feel that when I do finally get to hike the canyon, I’ll be able to identify many of them. Especially by their tails! That’s a cool aspect of the book. The author and illustrator build “suspense” by showing an animal’s tail on one page. Then you turn to the next page to discover which animal the tail belongs to!

 

Studying the animals on the
trail.

           But here’s the really cool part. The story includes rhyme, rhythm, and repetition—three of my favorite literary devices. Not only do these techniques make a story fun to read and hear, but they also make it easy to memorize. So when my Grammy Dee came to visit me, I played a trick on her. I recited the lines from memory, and she thought I was reading! Shhh...please don’t tell her my secret. She already suspected I was a genius. Now she's convinced I am!

 

Want to hear me "read" my book? Click on the video!