They Put on Masks

by Byrd Baylor, Jerry Ingram

Drawings and text present the many kinds of American Indian masks and their use with dances and songs to speak to the gods.

Genres: Native American

46 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1974

About the author

Byrd Baylor has always lived in the Southwest, mainly in Southern Arizona near the Mexican border. She is at home with the southwestern desert cliffs and mesas, rocks and open skies. She is comforted by desert storms. The Tohono O’odham people, previously known as the Papagos, are her neighbors and close friends. She has focused many of her writings on the region’s landscape, peoples, and values. Through her books of rhythmic prose poetry, written primarily for children, she celebrates the beauty of nature and her own feelings of rapport with it.
Byrd has written many books for children.

Her books have been honored with many prestigious children’s book awards, including the Caldecott Award and the Texas Bluebonnet Award. All of her books are full of the places and the peoples that she knows. She thinks of these books as her own kind of private love songs to the place she calls home.

Reviews

[Leo and Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would not have guessed it but my 3.5-year-old wanted to read this book over and over. He even corrected me when I missed a phrase after having read it just a couple times. My child seems to really connect with all of Byrd Baylor's titles.

[T Crockett · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt more like a catalog of mask types and uses across Native American peoples, than a book you'd read for pleasure.