by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 10, 2010

Byrd Baylor was born in Texas, and 56 years later she apparently wrote a children's book about it. In "The Best Town in the World," a little boy describes his father's memories of the remote small town in Texas town where he'd grown up. It's a lovely poem, written in free verse, and it seems to draw on some real life memories. Byrd writes that the town "had a creek and there were panther tracks to follow and you could swing on the wild grapevines."

"We always liked to hear about that town where everything was perfect."

The book shares memory after memory, though it's also describing that special sense of belonging. It was considered a privilege to be called one of the "canyon people" who lived in the town or on one of its surrounding farms and ranches. They were proud of their cooking, and the boy's father remembers being called indoors on his way home from school as one of the neighborhood cooks offered him a delicious piece of gingerbread or sweet potato pie.

"…and stand there
by the big wood stove
and smile at you
while you were eating."

There's also some perfectly folksy illustrations by artist Ronald Himler. Using warm watercolors, he captures bright summer skies and the orange light of sunset. Himler's soft picture seems realistic but sweet, as though Norman Rockwell were an impressionist painter. He offers scenes suggested by the poems, but also matches the book's relaxed and friendly tone.

Eventually the boy challenges his father's description - since he'd described the water in the creek as being ice cold. "But that's the way creek water is supposed to be," father countered, and the children learn a valuable lesson. The poem is suggesting how wonderful a personal memory can be - and how subjective. But it teaches this by insisting that father's adoring children learned a different lesson. "However things were in that town is just exactly how things ought to be."

The father remembers the blackberries - and walking home with a bucket full of them after foraging in a sunny thicket. The chickens lay prettier eggs, and the dogs were smarter and more loyal. "Summer days were longer there than they are in other places, and wildflowers grew taller and thicker on the hills…" And fireflies lit up the sky at night, while in the distance someone would play a fiddle.

"Still, we used to wonder if possibly, just possibly, there might be another perfect town somewhere."

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