GRAND CANYON

The fruit of a 12-day visit to the Grand Canyon, Minor goes solo in this departure from his usual meticulously detailed art for an album of watercolor sketches. The art is accompanied by brief, ruminative observations on wildflowers, sudden storms, the visits of 19th-century painter Thomas Moran and explorer John Wesley Powell, rock formations, and other topics. Studies of light and shadow, rocks and trees, form and, occasionally, color, the scenes fill the page; opposite each is a smaller vignette or quickly sketched animal portrait. Less a systematic tour of the Grand Canyon than a visual and verbal appreciation of its large- scale and small-scale beauties, this will delight young armchair travelers and naturalists. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)