A View from the Air: 9charles Lindbergh's Earth and Sky

As a tribute to her late father's ``great love and concern for the natural world,'' author Lindbergh ( The Midnight Farm ) imagines and gives voice to the aviator's thoughts as he flies over the land he cherishes. Written as a poem, her words are accompanied by a series of aerial photographs taken in the early 1970s when the elder Lindbergh flew a young nature photographer over northern New England. Brown's sweeping images celebrate the grace and dignity of the landscape in colorful detail: a sun-dappled church; a cluster of red farm buildings blanketed in snow; the blazing colors of autumn foliage. Unfortunately, the presentation of this laudable undertaking seems to distance the reader from Charles Lindbergh's voice. Also, the rigorous meter of Lindbergh's occasionally heavy-handed verse (``Earth can still heal and recover / Given our time and our care. / Some things have vanished forever / But earth will remain, and repair.'') clashes with the grandeur and power of the photographs. All ages. (Sept.)