Saturday, April 14, 2012

"Roxaboxen" by Alice McLerran, Illustrated by Barbara Cooney

Roxaboxen isn't your typical children's book.  It's something more beautiful and real than that- a recorded history of a beloved childhood place.  Alice McLerran's mother played with a group of neighborhood children on a rocky hill in Yuma, Arizona, and the story she told her daughter about her adventures in this place they named Roxaboxen is this book.  I think most everyone had a place like this- a place that becomes something else, that dominates a young mind and heart and becomes real.   The landscape of this book is different than many books, and I love the Arizona flora and fauna.  We live close to a desert that resembles the Arizona landscape, complete with spiky ocotillo and yucca plants.
This book led the town of Yuma to create a park where the original Roxaboxen stood- adding only a few new benches, but keeping the grounds much as they were when Alice McLerran's mother played there...although I'm sure they cleaned up some of the glass.
Jack likes the lizard graveyard, having a love for all reptiles, dead or alive.  He also likes to hear about the jail.
(Scholastic Inc. 1991)

No comments: