Tex

Certain childhood dreams are elemental—growing up to be a firefighter, a ballerina, or a cowboy—and adult author Lawson, in her first children’s book, taps into that third option with a photographic ode to a boy’s imagined life on the ranch. Lawson begins by introducing readers to Luke (her son), who first appears in grayscale photos. “He lives in a house near the ocean.... But Luke imagines he is... Tex.” Color photographs, on the right side of each spread, portray Tex as one serious cowpoke, wearing a jean shirt, boots, and a black brimmed hat against an expansive landscape of mountains and “wide open spaces.” Spare prose plays into the taciturn image of a cowboy on the job (“All day long Tex works hard. He rides. He irrigates. He checks fence”), and even with her son in the starring role, Lawson avoids both cutesiness and the feel of a vanity project, focusing on the simple pleasures of hard work and a job well done. The seriousness with which the book takes Tex’s role on the ranch validates children’s dreams and ambitions. Ages 3–5. (Oct.)