I wish I could go back to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. I visited there when I was five years old, stood on the rim of the canyon, and looked across and down. If I could go there again, I would want to visit down, deep inside it. I know my knees would never last long enough to take me there. I am grateful that Jason Chin has written and illustrated the superb picture book, Grand Canyon. Find it in the non-fiction section of the Children’s Department, Pine Bush Area Public Library. Be prepared to be swept away.

The illustrations include a father and young daughter who are camping near one of the streams which feed into the Colorado River. With daybreak, they start their long hike up from the bottom to the top rim of the canyon. The Grand Canyon is roughly one mile deep, but you do not just walk up one mile to get out of it. Only Superman could get out like that, zip! It is a long haul to walk and climb and go up another level and then zig zag around and go up and back and forth some more. You pass different levels, some are dry and some are a bit moister, and all have plants and animals in them. Birds are in every picture and I remember seeing the black squirrels with the white tails.

To make a canyon, first there must be layers of mud and sand and sediments which make different kinds of rocks when they are compressed. They were laid down by the seas that covered the region. Later, much later, what we now call the Colorado River started to eat into the layers and cut through them. It is still doing that today.

Our girl sees “ripple marks preserved in the stone. Clues like these tell us what this place was like when the rock formed. They are like windows—into the past.” Turn the page and our girl is standing all alone on “mud from this tidal flat.” The moment passes and she and dad are still hiking through the canyon. She reaches towards a fossil trilobite. Suddenly she is holding her breath and floating in deep water.

Back on solid ground, she sees a fossil of a wing—and she is suddenly surrounded by “huge dragonflies with 8-inch wingspans.” She and dad hike up, up, up and she sees a clam shell in the rock, and she is once again holding her breath and floating in the sea, along with “up to forty species of sharks.” Not what I expect of the dry and rocky Grand Canyon!

This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen. The illustrations by Jason Chin are wonderful beyond my ability to tell you. See for yourself and use this book to Unearth A Story!