The Backyard

With the skill of a consummate artist, Collier ( Petrouchka ) turns the ordinary into the extraordinary in this highly evocative picture book. The spare, poetic text is told from a imaginative child's point of view, and, like Judi Kurjian and David Wagner's In My Own Backyard (Children's Books Forecasts, Oct. 11), story and pictures peel back layers of time to reveal the dramatic history of a garden-variety suburban backyard. What begins as a wide stretch of lawn, complete with shrubs and a clothesline, and a vast expanse of blue sky, is gradually replaced with views of the carpenters who built the home, the farm boys and cows who came before them, cowboys who ``sang lonesome songs and died on cold plains,'' Native Americans, dinosaurs who ``walked the shores of seas no sailor ever saw'' and further and further back to the creation of the earth. The refrain ``all in my backyard'' ties the tale together, and readers are left with a final, haunting image of a deserted swing set blowing in a high wind. Collier's illustrations glow with a rich interplay of light and shadow, and his subdued, Wyeth-esque palette adds to the slightly eerie, wondrous quality of the book. Sure to send young readers outside with a renewed respect for their surroundings, this one's a real treasure. Ages 3-8. (Dec.)