His curiosity sparked by a childhood memory of hearing the Bronx Zoo's bison called "the Mother Herd," Waldman (Masada) here presents an articulate and informative volume recounting the animal's bittersweet history. The tale begins on an Oklahoma hilltop, where a Comanche boy asks his grandmother, "Tell me about the buffalo. What did they look like?" She assures him that he will soon see with his own eyes. From there the story unfolds in a series of scenes that flash between Oklahoma and turn-of-the-century New York City, where men load a herd of the creatures onto wagons and, eventually, onto a train headed back to the grandmother's hilltop, their "ancestral habitat." Throughout, the grandmother recounts to her grandson the glory days of the buffalo and their sad demise at the hands of white settlers. Waldman tracks the herd's progress as it crosses the country, drawing crowds of curious onlookers. He pairs his eloquent, sepia-toned watercolors—which have the look of old photographs—with black-and-white sketches, and subtly heightens the story's tension with the cinematic intersplicing of scenes. A historical note explains how 19th-century conservationists brought back the bison from the brink of extinction through the use of such seed herds, and they're now thriving on protected ranges across the country. Ages 7-up. (Aug.)
