Big Red Kangaroo

Lyrical text and Byrne's dramatic charcoal and digital collages propel readers into one night in the life of Red, a large Australian kangaroo. Informational text that further explains the red roo's habits--and allows readers to extrapolate from a single animal to the entire species--accompanies each page of the narrative. A concluding note provides additional information about kangaroos. Ind.

The jacket illustration depicts a kangaroo jumping from left to right, the opening endpapers contain a red roo's footprints leading in the same direction, and the title page shows the large marsupial poised to leap into the first pages of text. Just three page turns and Byrne's dramatic charcoal and digital collages propel readers into one night in the life of Red, a large Australian kangaroo. The text begins lyrically: "In the center of Australia, far inland, where ocean is a dim memory, the sun floats on the waves of another bake-earth day." The accompanying double-page spread shimmers with a background of hot reds and yellows, while the parched vegetation resembles a burned-out forest. To escape the heat, Red and his mob, which seems to include a female, a joey, and a young kangaroo, forage at night, encountering animals and plants native to the area (though unfamiliar to many Americans). Informational text that further explains the red roo's habits -- and allows readers to extrapolate from a single animal to the entire species -- accompanies each page of the narrative. In a particularly dramatic climax, another male challenges Red; the outline of the two sparring silhouetted against a full moon makes it clear that this is serious business. But Red prevails. "For now." A concluding note provides additional information about kangaroos, and an index completes the book. betty carter