Rhyolite: The True Story of a Ghost Town

After I stood and read this book in the Visitor Center at Furnace Creek (Death Valley), I knew I had to go out to Rhyolite and see the ghost town. The exceptional woodcuts by David Frampton evoke the beginning of the 20th century in a Nevada boom town; the coyotes, emblematic of the natural world that cannot be kept at bay by this unnatural town, weave in and out of the story like the haunting refrain of a ballad. Unlike another reviewer, I found the couplets charming, witty, and not tedious at all. The internal rhymes, alliteration and striking similies (rooms/...like open, sunlit tombs) made the story exceedingly memorable.

This is an interesting, well written, rhyming story about the formation and demise of a town in Neveda in 1904 in response to a gold rush. The woodcut illustrations are beautiful. It is a useful book to teach a child about the concept of a ghost town, something my six year old son, who has been raised on the East Coast and Midwest, had no idea existed.