This Big Sky

<p> Award-winning poet Pat Mora dedicates <i>This Big Sky</i> to her daughter, &quot;who loves animals and deserts,&quot; and certainly, this collection of poems is rich with the lives of coyotes, snakes and lizards, of cactus and sand, and never-ending sky. But there are surprises here too, like a poem about a woman who walks through the pueblo in purple tennis shoes with an umbrella over her head, or an urban-dwelling raccoon that sneaks over brick walls and across city rooftops. There's even a poem called &quot;Halloween&quot; that will make reader and listener alike wonder if the howling sound they hear is from the neighbor's dog or a wild lobo prowling in the shadows.</p> <p> Pat Mora's poems are colorful and haunting, and the collection includes a glossary to help translate the Spanish words that sometime appear in her big poetic sky. Steve Jenkin's dramatic illustrations, made from paper cutouts, have a texture all their own and only make the poetry that much more engaging. In one verse, Mora instructs that to make a poem, one need only leap through a blue door in the sky. Leap away!</p>