When I grow up, I’m going to be a Mountie.” So opens Anne Laurel Carter’s new picture book, a first-person narrative of one boy’s ability to turn the task of finding his wayward little brother Will into a full-fledged adventure – a job fit only for the Mounties he so admires. As a storm looms over the prairie, the boy tells us he puts on his red serge coat, Stetson hat, blue breeches, and polished boots, saddles his eager horse Bess and heads out into the landscape. Following clues inadvertently left behind by Will, the boy knows he will eventually find him, for this is the land where “little brothers hide in wagon wheels looking for buffalo heads.” Sure enough, Will is discovered in the slough, grinning gleefully with a frog in each hand. Chased by dark clouds and hail, the boys flee home on Bess to the safety of their barn and the relief of their parents. “All in the line of duty,” the boy assures Bess as he rubs her down.

Carter’s sparse text has just enough subtlety to impart the narrator’s belief in his Mountie persona. (Does he truly wear the uniform or is that simply how he sees himself?) Both horse and boy seem primed for adventure that’s almost magical. Carter’s language works well with the Daniels’ highly eloquent illustrations – faces, vantage points, and body language reveal emotion while the encroaching storm slowly dominates the prairie vistas. It is delightful to watch the boy take on the very real responsibility of finding his lost sibling in a personal adventure as it unfolds on one of nature’s most dramatic stages. Readers will identify with the boy’s escape into being not who he is, but the character he longs to be. Under a Prairie Sky provides an anticipated yet satisfying ending: after all, Mounties always get their man. – (formerly Higgs), a youth services librarian in California’s Fresno County Library.