A COW'S ALFALFA-BET

Jackson transports his audience to Vermont with this simple alphabet book that, according to an endnote, celebrates the beauty of "the dairy farms in the Champlain Valley." A white border on each page contains a square watercolor painting that incorporates the artist's signature Holsteins (made famous by the Ben & Jerry ice cream cartons and trucks). Below each painting, a word introduces a letter of the alphabet: the first letter is enlarged and painted a solid color, the remaining letters appear in a unified black typeface. Each image captures a quiet moment of farm life: two cows walk past a field of "Corn"; a cow on a snow-covered field gazes at "Icicles"; white ducks swim by a grazing herd ("Quack"). Jackson's paintings have an impressionistic quality: in "Jerseys," for instance, golden-hued cows in the foreground appear against a band of green, black-and-white Holsteins stand behind them on a dusty-blue band, while ribbons of sunset colors (yellow, red, purple) rise up the page, culminating in an ocean-blue sky. Each painting stands alone as a remarkable work of art; together they create a visual ode to the beauty of the Vermont landscape. A magnificent addition to the alphabet book genre and a fitting tribute to a vanishing lifestyle. All ages. (Sept.)