OLD THUNDER AND MISS RANEY

Young Raney Cloud’s luck isn’t all that turns around in this folksy debut. Determined to win a blue ribbon at last at the Washita County Fair, Raney whips up a batch of Sooner Biscuits—only to have it burn while she’s out tending to her beloved nag Thunder. And the flour bin’s empty. Despite gathering clouds, Raney sets off for the store—and meets a tornado on the way back that picks her up—horse, wagon, flour, and all—spins her across the sky, and sets her down gently just outside her farmhouse. Even though her biscuits, made from storm-sifted flour, are now lighter than air, they still don’t take first place—but when she feeds them to Old Thunder, he kicks up his heels and beats all comers in the plow-horse race. With her long, red, frizzy braid flying behind, Raney makes an appealingly disheveled figure in Brown’s (Old Woman Who Named Things, 1996, etc.) fine-lined, pale-hued watercolors. Smaller sketches drawn to suggest old sepia photographs add to the bygone-days flavor of this triumphant, slightly tall whirlwind of a tale. (Picture book. 7-9)