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Buffalo Song

Review
By Booklist

For young conservationists, the rescue of the buffalo from the brink of extinction in the 1870s and 1880s is both a dark warning and an inspiration. Drawing on Indian history, this oversize picture book focuses on the essential role of one passionate rescuer, Walking Coyote, of the Salish nation, who struggles to raise orphaned buffalo calves until the endangered species finds safety. Partly fictionalized, the story begins with the only surviving calf of a herd destroyed by white hunters. Young Red Elk persuades his dad to take the calf to Walking Coyote’s shelter. Bruchac’s long, eloquent afterword fills in the facts of the near extinction and the people and organizations who prevented it. . . . Farnsworth’s beautiful, full-bleed oil paintings picture a landscape black with buffalo, and then the calf with the people who help it grow strong enough to join the herd and roam free.