Writing from a narrative center somewhere between Mark Twain and Garrison Keillor, author Roger Welsch memorializes the town and inhabitants of Centralia (aka Dannebrog, pop. 356), Nebraska, in what he calls "Bleaker County." Centralia itself is either the center of this windswept prairie state or the center of the universe, depending on who you ask in this small town. It's located not far north of the Platte River and its farmlands, and not far south of the Sandhills, with its population of cattle and cowboys. Life in Centralia gravitates toward the Town Tavern, where many of these story-essays take place, and we meet Welsch's fictionalized friends and neighbors: Lunchbox, Goose, Slick, Woodrow, and Cece -- the regulars. There are also his wife Lily, daughter Jenny, an Indian friend Cal, a kind-hearted bachelor uncle named Grover Bass, a film crew from public television in Lincoln, a mean cuss named Royal Cupp, a rip-tearing adventurer, Luke Bigelow, and many others.

Welsch has an appreciation for the quirky, cock-eyed, and audacious. Like an endlessly curious anthropologist, he's equally fascinated by the everyday and the out-of-the-ordinary. He's a humanist, romanticizing his characters even while he's treating them with tongue-in-cheek irony. He's also willing to show that they can stoop to the unforgivable, or that they do not share his appreciation for people from other ethnic backgrounds. There is a range of tones and sentiments in the book, from comic farce to tenderness and awe. My favorite essay, "Racing Horses at the Centralia Fourth of July," ranges across all three, as his young teenage daughter teams up with a burly cowboy to take second place in a relay race. I laughed and had tears in my eyes by the end.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and happily recommend it to anyone with an interest in small town life on the Plains. As a companion volume, I'd suggest the short stories of life in a rural Minnesota community in Kent Meyers' "Light in the Crossing."

This is life and this is fun! Beautiful pictures of Great Plain - Small Village life written -so well!- by an expert.

In "It's Not the End of the Earth,..", Roger Welsch does an excellent job bringing out the humor of small town life by simply telling stories about his friends in Centralia, NE. He has a witty way of giving value to each of the members of this rural community bringing to light the peculiar habits and expressions that make them all unique, interesting, and memorable. I applaud Prof. Welsch's folkloric expose' of the kinds of everyday things that I used to laugh about with my dad - some of my favorite things.

Even though this book is geared to the older elementary student, I used it to supplement my instruction for third graders. It has a wealth of strong information and contains clear and interesting illustrations.

At first glance this book looks like it is simply another children's book but once you open it the beautiful, full color photos speak for themselves! The book is 100% full color and shows a variety of men and women of different Plains tribal affiliations and their routines of daily life. Everything from styles of clothing to weapons, to men's and women's roles is covered in accurate, deatiled photography accompanied by brief commentary. Each subject is attired in meticulously replicated regalia done by the author who is a well known and respected Plains Indian authority. Another nice feature is the addition of a resource page listing historical sites of the Great Plains region. For such a small price tag this is one book that should be on every American history buff's bookshelf! You will not be disappointed!

Michael Terry's "Daily Life in a Plains Indian Village, 1868" is a wonderful book that, although geared toward children and adolescents, provides a colorful overview of the ways of life of the Plains Indian peoples for all readers. The full color, large photograaphs on every page are incredible. Northern Palins replica makers and craftworkers will also find a wealth of close-up photos and descriptions of tools, weapons, and art to which they can refer in their work. If you wish you could see the Plains Indians in the full color splendor for which they are known then this is the book for you!

We traveled across Wyoming, down the Colorado-Nebraska border, crossed the narrow panhandle of Oklahoma, and continued southward through the high plains to Amarillo and Lubbock. It was long day. Temperatures reached 106 degrees. Our return from Wyoming to east Texas is never easy.

The great plains are awesome, stretching forever in all directions. Barb wire fences, lonely windmills, widely scattered cattle, and some isolated ranch and farm houses are among the few landmarks. How did the early pioneers react to this vast barrier extending from Mexico to Canada?

Walter Prescott Webb's acclaimed history, The Great Plains, is a fascinating examination of how our extensive plains shaped American history. For more than two hundred years settlers had pushed westward, largely along navigable rivers, and tamed a wilderness with the axe, the plow, and the rifle. But in the mid-1800s this westward movement encountered a new world, a vast plain lacking forest, navigable rivers, and adequate rainfall. The lessons of the past few centuries were irrelevant in this new, formidable wilderness.

Webb argues that the Spanish (and later the Mexicans) failure to colonize the area that is now western United States was due to their inability to defeat the plains Indians, especially the Apaches and Comanches in Texas. Travel from San Antonio to Santa Fe was not easy; the route was southward deep into Mexico to Durango and then back west and northward to Santa Fe. The direct route westward across the plains was Indian country.

As the American settlers ventured onto the plains after the Civil War, they were aided by an explosion of innovations, especially the Samuel Colt revolver (tipped the balance away from the Indians), the barb wire fence (made fencing possible), and the self-operating windmill (made water available). And the railroads made freight and livestock transportation possible between the populated, industrialized eastern states and the sparsely populated great plains.

Webb describes in exciting detail the short, remarkable period of the cowboys, the cattle drives, and the cattle barons. Indelibly engraved on the American psyche, this period was already history by 1930 as Webb offered his insightful thoughts on the settlement of our mid-continent.

I can think of only one other history of the American West that compares with this remarkable work, and that is that great book by Ray Allen Billington, Westward Expansion. Before your next travel across our endless plains, I encourage you to read Walter Prescott Webb's fascinating history of The Great Plains.

So many people use the cliche "this is the best book I've ever read" when critiquing it. I mean it. This book, 70 years old this year, is a brilliant historical work. Webb calls the 98th meridian an "institutional fault line" that required alteration or abandonment of all the laws and implements used in pioneering east of the line. Webb offers the windmill, the six-shooter, and barbed wire as three examples of inventive genius that allowed pioneers to settle on the Great Plains. Webb cites Eastern land laws, as well as the old English common law, as impractical when used on the Plains. Interestingly, Webb states that the West was lawless in part because settlers had to disobey these impractical land laws in order to survive on the Plains. Webb examines the Great Plains from a multitude of angles to substantiate his thesis. He successfully defends it, and in the process creates a work that is of great interest to people from many walks of life.

In the mid-1930s, this book won the Loubat Prize as the best work published over a five year period. In 1950, a national panel of historians selected The Great Plains as the most significant historical work by a living author. This book continues to receive attention as reflected in the bibliographies of current books dealing with aspects of the American West.

In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner's essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," outlined his Frontier Theory. Turner asserted that the frontier was the decisive factor in creating an American nation distinct from other nations; that the frontier created dominant traits of individualism, freedom, materialism, originality, et. al. Turner called the frontier a "safety valve" of abundant resources which shopuld be exploited for the benefit of the national good. Turner's theory foresaw progress from the simple to the complex.

Webb's "The Great Plains" modifies Turner's theory by pointing out the steady progression of settlement westward from the timbered and well watered Atlantic Coast to the edge of the Great Plains; the 98th Meridian, an "institutional fault line." Webb contended the great plains were neglected until all lands that were timbered and well watered were taken; that pioneers "jumped" across to the Pacific Slope where they could also employ long-standing techniques that had been successful in the East.

Not until the post Civil War era were pioneers able to settle the great plains (characteristics: a level surface, an absence of timber, and a deficiency of rainfall), and then only by drastically altering or changing their previous frontier techniques. According to Webb, westerners on the great plains became progressive because they relied upon change in order to overcome their harsh environment. The pioneer used what was given him and the results astonished the world.

Great plains pioneers had to build houses without timber, burn fires without wood, carve furrows in soil so matted and tough an ordinary wood or iron plow would snag in the sod or skitter across its surface like a stick over ice, draw water from an arid or semi-arid land, and grow crops that could exist with little water. Webb contends adaptation and innovation in the development and use of new or existing products and techniques allowed the hardy pioneers to conquer their environment. In essence, often reverting from the complex to the simple - "geographic reality."

This book is interesting and easily read. Webb's research ranges from the Indians, Spaniards, Americans, cattle, and water - encompassing the esoteric and the simple. For example, he delves into the Land Law of the West, in all its complexity (written by Webb 68 years ago) and the parallel and distinct differences in sign language used by deaf mutes and the plains Indians.

Webb's scholarly research is reflected in the extensive bibliography that follows each chapter. The index is useful and annotated to identify areas of relationship when warranted.

The accolades given this book over the years is well deserved. Webb's innovative study is fascinating and expands the reader's knowledge of the great plains as it contains a wealth of information on the history of the region. Webb's later book "The Great Frontier" was also influential and controversial. Both books are the hallmark of Walter Prescott Webb's long and distinguished career.

Iktomi, the trickster of the lakota, is up to his old tricks. In his chance meeting with the prairie dogs, he demonstrates his untrustworthiness by making them up into a fine meal. However, Iktomi meets up with Coyote, equally clever and untrustworthy, and finds himself tricked! This is the sixth book of the Iktomi series by Paul Goble. The book is another masterpiece of artwork and story telling in the grand tradition of Paul Goble's award winning work. This book is a must buy for the school library, the storyteller, and parents who wish their children to read and look at a most delightful book. The best part of this beautiful artwork and story is that it tells a moral story, set in the old Indian Buffalo Days, that is as relevant today as it was back when. Highly recommened for ages 2 through 12, and of course, adults of any age. Dennis West

Iktomi, The trickster of the Lakota, is up to his old tricks. In his chance meeting with the Prairie Dogs, demonstrates his untrustworthiness by making them up into fine meal. However, Iktomi meets up with Coyote, equally clever and untrustworthy, and finds himself tricked. This is the sixth book of the Itktomi series by Paul Goble. The book is another masterpiece of artwork and storytelling in the grand tradition of Paul's Caldecott award winning work. This book is a must buy for the school library, the storyteller, and parents who wish their children to read and look at a most delightful book. THe Best part of this beautiful artwork and story is that it tells a moral story, set in the old Indian buffalo Days that is as relevant today, as it was back when. Highly recommended for ages 2 through 12, and of course, adults of any age. Dennis West Boca Raton FL.

IKtomi and The Coyote, by Paul Goble, new release by Orchard Books. IKTOMI, the trickster of the Lakota, is up to his old tricks. In his chance meeting with the Prairie Dogs, he demonstrates his untrustworthiness by making them up into a fine meal. However, IKTOMI meets up with Coyote, equally clever and untrustworthy, and finds himself tricked! This is the sixth book of the Itktomi series by Paul Goble. The book is another masterpiece of art work and story telling in the grand tradition of Paul Goble's award winning work. This book is a must buy for the school library, the storyteller, and parents who wish their children to read and look at a most delightful book. The best part of this beautiful story and artwork, is that it tells a moral story, set in the old Indian Buffalo days; that is as relevant today as it was back when. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for ages 2 through 12, and of course, adults of any age. Dennis West redfox@axxsys.net

The book I read was mostly about a young girl who was put up for adoption with her brothers and sisters. Then she was adopted by the Browder family who was exspecting a baby.
She enjoyed her new family very much. Before the baby was born she got a new puppy. This book has a very good moral to it. I reccomend this book to people who enjoy old timey stories.

I thought that this was a great book. after I read A family apart (book #1 of the series) I decided to read them all I thought this one was the best of the 7 books.

this book is a great portrayal of fear and detecting. joan lowery nixon is a great author and i have heard she is a nice person.

This is a really excellent collection of 77 photos taken 1985-1995 across the high plains states from Montana to Texas. All are in richly captured color, and all manage to bring the panorama of this wide open country within the viewfinder of the still camera. Brown's achievement is to show the suggestive and telling details that transform these "empty" landscapes into spaces that are filled with drama and atmosphere.

A shot of winter prairie, south of Edgerton, Wyoming, reveals the contoured undulations of grasslands thick with frost, the banks of a shallow wash weaving into the distance, the horizon blending into the brightly overcast sky. The entire image seems sepia-tinted in the winter light. An early summer shot of ground water standing dark and rippled in a Nebraska Sandhills pond shows tufted grasses in the foreground leaning with the wind. A single slender fence post is echoed in the distance by a single tree in full leaf and just visible beyond it a windmill. The grass extends to the gently rolling horizon where a white thundercloud begins to pile upward into the vivid blue of a brightly sunlit sky.

Light, shadow, clouds, all seem still but are in movement, and many of the photographs heighten a sense of time's gradual passing -- the hour, the day, the season, the years. A roadside directory, indicating the distances to ranches has been weathered and sun-bleached. An old shingle-roofed elevator stands empty and overgrown with trees. There's a disused one-room school, white paint worn by wind and rain down to the bare boards. Tall weeds grow in the playground, and the setting sun casts the shadow of a swing set against a side wall.

And there are many signs of life, as well -- a general store with gas pumps and pop machines in front, a TV antenna overhead, and a gravel lot for parking; a barber shop with curving glass brick and shiny red tile facade, with an American flag on a pole at the curb; a last-picture-show cinema, the Rialto, with nothing on the marquee, but above it a wonderful mural of cowboys around the campfire and a chuckwagon with "Welcome to Brownville" on its canvas covering.

There are photographs of small town life -- a young man and little girl stand by the front door of a tiny house, the white siding bright in the late afternoon sun and a darkening sky behind them; a sign painter sits on the back of his truck under a hand-lettered sign, "Advertise Dammit Advertise Before We Both Go Under"; a floor-to-ceiling chalkboard is filled with for-sale notices for hay hauling, an early American sofa and matching swivel/rocker, a 3/4 ton Chev. 4x4, toy poodles, chow puppies, and a bird dog that "will point."

And this really only scratches the surface. The photographs reveal themselves slowly, and with a patient and inquisitive eye, there is much to see in all of them. If you have lived in or traveled through this region, as I have, you will see much that you recognize, recall its quieter pace of life, and marvel again at the great diversity of landscape, seasons, and weather.

Kathleen Norris has written an appreciative introduction to the book, and Brown has an essay at the end, describing a lifetime of fascination with this part of the world. The book includes a listing of all its photographs, noting the location of each and the year in which it was taken. For anyone who grew up on the Plains and now lives elsewhere, this book is like a return home. As a companion volume, I'd recommend Ian Frazier's book "Great Plains," which covers this same territory in words and with much the same attitude. Kathleen Norris' "Dakota" is another good one.

Photographer Peter Brown wanted this book to reflect the many jouneys he made across the Plains in his youth...''from open country to a small town, through this town, on to a larger one, and then out again into open space and sky'', he says in his Afterword. This great book of photos does just that.

Years ago I read Walter Prescott Webb's definitive study 'The Great plains' and I became fascinated by this amazing part of America (still haven't managed to get there yet) and he descibes how some of the early settlers stopped when the came up against the Plains, being used to the European countryside they just could not take the flatness, no trees, no hills and if it it was not the quietness it was the wind, blowing for days on end. These fine photos capture the flavor of what they must have seen.

The small town photos show buildings with a weather-beaten look, the Allensville, Kansas, city hall is no bigger than a simple house, the lovely aerial shot of Marfa, Texas shows a town you could drive through in a minute and after the photo of Marathon, Texas it is back to the flat landscape until the end of the book.

If you want to capture the feel of the Plains this book will do it for you...an excellent keepsake. Maybe I'll visit next year!

I found this book in the giftshop at the Sioux Falls airport in South Dakota. As a woman who grew up On the Plains, I found that Brown's photographs captured the true essence of the beauty one finds there. It's not simply a collection of "postcard" photographs of abandoned windmills, lonely pastures, and fragile pasque flowers. The photos depict the "real" plains, complete with its people and its architecture. Norris' introduction is, as I had anticipated, an enjoyable complement to the photos. This is a lovely book to share with people who appreciate the beauty of the Great Plains.

This is a wonderfully written book. The story is touching. The language is expressive and descriptive. The illustrations are vivid and add much to the story. This was a great book to read aloud. It can give students a taste of life in a different time and place. Wonderful!

Angels in the Dust is a beautifully written book about life during the Dust Bowl. The story is touching and Margot Theis Raven has a true talent of writing. The illustrations are breathtaking!!!

There is so much to like about this book-the engaging voice of the author, the tidbits of history woven into the narrative, the unusual (quirky) characters Mr. Higgs worked with and met on his journey (not to mention his bizarre wife). Richard Higgs is a unique and fascinating storyteller--curious, introspective, intelligent, poetic--not to mention his high sense of irony. This book is a pleasure and a treasure.

A wonderful book about the journey from a diner in Tulsa to the wheat harvests in the heartland. This book is the author's first published effort and is worth buying, buy it in hardback it is a better deal. Let me know if you want to get it.

If you are at all interested in natural history, history, the prairie, Oklahoma, or families in general, this is a book you will greatly enjoy. It 's also a beautiful book with generous numbers of great black and white photos. Definitely a "must read."

The Buffalo Creek Chronicles is a team effort, uniting the photographs and commentary of Don House, memoirs by Sue Selman and observations by Gary Lantz focusing on the personal, cultural and natural history of the Selman Ranch, some 16,000 acres of native prairie along Buffalo Creek in northwest Oklahoma.

The ranch dates back to when founder J.O. Selman herded longhorns up from Texas during the 1890s while he accumulated land of his own in the big, unfenced cattle country known as the Cherokee Strip.

J.O., or "Jimmy Few Clothes" as he was called due to the stark poverty that inspired him to join a trail drover crew at age 15, eventually amassed more than 60,000 acres between the North Canadian and Cimarron Rivers. Today Sue Selman's children represent the family's fourth generation to live and work on the ranch.

Lantz and House spent over a year exploring the ranch from every angle-on foot, through the window of a pickup truck, in the saddle, in a wagon pulled by a team of draft horses.

During that time they became acquainted with Selman family history, the sodbusters who lived in dugouts carved into dirt bluffs, pioneers who arrived here in covered wagons, epidemics that swept the countryside, plagues of grasshoppers, cowboys with a taste for whiskey, the last horseback bank robbery in Oklahoma, blizzards, dust storms, droughts. The authors found Indian artifacts and ancient buffalo bones half buried in the banks of Sleeping Bear Creek. They rode with the Selmans as they celebrated their family heritage during a two day longhorn cattle drive held on the ranch. The men dodged rattlesnakes, made the acquaintance of a few porcupines, helped guide hunters from as far away as Buffalo, New York and watched a remnant flock of lesser prairie chickens stage a spring courtship drama that once thundered from every suitable knoll stretching from the Cimarron River sandhills to the rainshadow of the Rockies.

A sampling of some of each can be found in this book, along with Sue Selman's recollections of growing up in the rough 'n tumble Buffalo Creek cattle country during the 1950s, a time when little girls learned to rope as well as cope in what was traditionally a man's hard-edged, sunburned world.

This book is about cows, grass and a proud heritage and culture seeking new ways to survive. Fickle cattle markets have prompted Sue and her children to explore nontraditional land use practices, including fee hunting and nature tourism, to keep the family together and the ranch intact.

A special section devoted to Don House's black and white photographs seeks to portray the stark dignity of a landscape that oftentimes unnerves visitors due to the encircling bigness of it all. Capturing he Buffalo Creek country on film is an exercise in interpreting overpowering horizons, a landscape that must be dissected and examined in increments, then somehow visually and philosophically reconnected to grasp the sum of all the parts.

Don's camera examines not just the landscape, but also moments of time and space contained within that landscape. In addition to his contemporary photographs, he has judiciously selected and edited historical pictures that add faces and places to the personalities represented in the text.

The mission of the Buffalo Creek Chronicles was to write the biography of a ranch that continues to defy all odds and exist under the founder's name, along with the people, the plants, the animals and the weather that comprise the character of this particular place on earth. The Buffalo Creek country can have a hard edge to it, and the people must acquire a special toughness to survive here. Yet at the same time this land can be beautiful and brimming with life. The writers hope this book will give readers a new appreciation for not only our rapidly disappearing native grasslands, but also the ranchers who do so much to preserve what little remains