On the Pampas

Welcome to cowboy life, South American style. With a sure hand, the author, who grew up in Buenos Aires and summered on her grandparents' nearby ranch, recalls the kind of experience just about every child yearns for at one time or another: learning to ride a horse and use a lasso, helping round up cattle for branding, slipping out to the bunkhouse at night and listening to the tall tales of the cowboys (in this case, gauchos). This story has the added spice of an unusual setting (the flat pampas grasslands) and unusual activities--hunting for ostrich eggs, earning a silver coin-studded gaucho belt by summer's end. Brusca's workmanlike watercolors supply a welcome snapshot of a part of the world not often pictured for children, and her gaily decorated endpapers provide a visual dictionary of the Spanish terms that pepper the text. Ages 4-7. (Mar.)