book reviews

I recently made a decision. Whenever I finish a book, I'm going to write a little review on here. It might be just a few sentences, maybe a paragraph or two, and occasionally I might put up a full review (but only if I wrote one for some other reason). And my first book review is for H is for Hawkeye: An Iowa Alphabet, written by Patricia A. Pierce and illustrated by Bruce Langton.

H is for Hawkeye is in a series of books, one for each state, that tells about the state with a new tidbit for each letter. (The North Carolina book is T is for Tarheel.) For example, A is for American Gothic, B is for Bix Beiderbecke, and C is for Carrie Chapman Catt. The illustrations are well done--I'm particularly fond of the pictures for the Iowa State Fair (I). Some of the letters I was intrigued by what could possibly fit them. Hello Q and X. Hello Quaker and SiouX City. She may have been reaching with X and R--river, really? R=RAGBRAI! She does describe RAGBRAI on the R page, so there's that. And I learned something from the book: every ear of corn always has an even number of rows, usually 14 or 16 (with between 40 and 50 kernels per row).