cover image Until the Cows Come Home

Until the Cows Come Home

Patricia Mills. NorthSouth, $14.95 (1pp) ISBN 978-1-55858-190-6

In her first book, author/photographer Mills pairs an uncomplicated, honed-down text with evocative hand-colored photographs. With a languid, antique quality, text and pictures guide readers past cows grazing, laundry hung out to dry, vegetables at a roadside stand and a coal train rumbling along ``as a sweet wind moves through the fields.'' The well composed (if somewhat listless) photographs seem removed from time--a lantern-bearing girl (one of only three figures glimpsed in the book) in a long dress and ribboned straw hat could be from the turn of the century; a boy playing at a stream suggests Tom Sawyer. Attractively designed (heavy, cream-colored stock adds to the book's nostalgia), this work, while admirably intentioned, exhibits drab coloration; the absence of much activity may make it more suitable for adults than for children. Ages 5-8. (Mar.)