Desert Voices

by Byrd Baylor, Byrd Baylor

On the hottest
summer afternoons
when desert creatures
look for shade
and stay close to the earth
and keep their voices low
I sit high on a cactus
and fling
my loud ringing trill
out to the sun...
So sings the Cactus Wren, one of the ten desert creatures that speaks for itself in the evocative and lyrical verses of Desert Voices. In both text and illustration, Desert Voices conveys a message of spirit and courage from the shy and quiet creatures of the beautiful desert land.

Genres: Poetry, Picture Books, Nature, Childrens

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

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

[Mrs. Wynn]

Bird Baylor speaks in the voice of several southwest desert animals: pack rat, jackrabbit, spadefoot toad, desert tortoise, buzzard, etc. Each poem is written in free verse--short, non-rhyming lines that give the reader a little information about the animal in a neat little word-picture. Peter Parnall's spare illustrative style are a perfect match. Nice book for sharing free verse poetry with younger readers. Share with 3rd and 4th graders, then have them try their hand at free verse poetry about a pet. Teach me something and paint a word-picture at the same time.

[Etta Mcquade]

This thought-provoking book of Byrd Baylor has to be read carefully and several times because each desert creature speaks in a poetic-prose way that can't be assimilated rapidly. Very nice, and I like Peter Parnall's illustrations, perhaps better in this book than in any of the others he has illustrated for the author.

[Julie]

Each animal of the American southwest desert gets a page in which to tell of its life and place in the ecosystem. Together their voices create a poetic way to learn about the food chains in the desert

[Audrey Smith]

I used this text of poems to demonstrate experiment with point of view in writing with my fourth grade students. Each poem is written from the perspective of a different desert animal, describing how they survive predators, find food, and exist in an arid environment. This book would also be great to include in science lessons about biomes and animal adaptations that help them survive. The illustrations were not as eye catching as I would have hoped, but students enjoyed discussing putting themselves in a different creature's perspective.

[Tinea]

Beautiful, slow like the heat of the day, and important to many of my friends. I came to it late. I preferred The Sonoran Desert: A Literary Field Guide, poems about the plants.

[Sarah]

Beautiful pictures and beautiful words.

[A.]

I loved the artwork as a child and still love it today

[Cheryl]

Each critter deserves its own read. That is to say, take a break between them; don't try to read this in one sitting. A marvelous team does it again. Another reviewer said this was probably their favorite art by Parnall. In my opinion and to my taste this may not be the best place to start exploring their oeuvre. But it is on openlibrary.org.

[S]

cool artwork- nice style. makes even the most boring subject, the desert, seem enticing.

[Lindsi]

each poem includes an animal. Not really into poetry so this was kind of boring for me. Pictures and colors were fun to look at though.