Cloud Eyes

In language as clear as ``the honeybee's sweet gold'' and with black-and-white drawings that seem etched with ``moon silver,'' Lasky and Moser spin an imaginative tale about a youth who dances with bears. Cloud Eyes is a dreamer: because he can ``find stories in the clouds,'' he can ``see and understand what other people could not.'' When the bear destroy the honeybees' trees and the honey pots of the people stand empty, Great-grandmother Bee sends Cloud Eyes a vision to teach him the dances of the bears. The resolution of the plot is hazy, as Cloud Eyes ritualistically kills a bear and wears its skin to dance with the bears at night. Later on, the bears become ``as calm and gentle as the bees'' because they remember Cloud Eyes's dance ``as if it were a dance from a dream.'' Lasky's (Sugaring Time) lyrical story and Moser's (Appalachia) masterful art seem perfectly in tune. The stillness of Moser's compositions, framed in plain tan borders, emphasizes the formal tone of the prose. Ages 5-10. (Oct.)