Haystack

Steeped in nostalgia, this quiet tribute to a bygone era, when ``haystacks stood high, long, and wide on the prairie,'' also honors the life cycle. Beginning with plain, unvarnished details about mowing, drying and tromping hay, the narrative moves on to explain the haystack's important purposes: to provide food, and a shelter from the wind, for cows during the winter; during warmer weather, to serve as a resting and feeding place for pigs (which the author of Pigs from A to Z illustrates with particular flair). In return, the animals' manure is used as fertilizer for the next year's hay, thus continuing the cycle. The Geiserts suggest the efficiency of farm life with precise etchings that capture textures and shades: a distant tractor tire, the shadows on piglets' underbellies. The text, too, is similarly sober-while it is informative, it provides little in the way of plot or colorful language to hook the reader's imagination. As a result, only those who already have an interest in farming will plow through with enthusiasm. All ages. (Sept.)