The American West has always been a place of adventure and natural beauty. With its wide-open spaces and sense of freedom, it’s a place of enduring dreams and new ideas. Open the cover of this beautiful book and accept award-winning artist Joel Nakamura’s invitation to Go West! Come along and join his colorful cast of characters to explore the magic that abounds in the lands west of the Mississippi. Come along and explore the frontier of the imagination! Come along and dream big! Come along and roam free…GO WEST!

A perfect bedtime read, and a delight to the eye, this colorful picture book will enthrall your little ones with its unique vision of life in the West!

AWARDS

• 2015 Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award Winner: Best Writer/Illustrator, Gold Medal
• 2015 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award Winner: Best Illustrator, Silver Medal
• 2015 USA Best Books Award Winner: Best Hardcover Nonfiction Children’s Picture Book
• State of New Mexico’s selection for the 2016 Library of Congress National Book Festival

REVIEWS

Not since Horace Greeley has the American West had such a vocal advocate….Nakamura blends fact, fable, and fantasy in a vision that goes well beyond the West being a place where the deer and antelope play. “Go west! Where alarm clocks have legs and feathers,” he writes, hand-drawing the text as a rooster’s crow; nearby, celestial objects dot the dust at the bird’s feet, a campfire coffeepot runs off on two legs, and a hybrid dog/cowboy hat dreams of bacon and eggs….a cowgirl blasts off in her rocket boots–it’s a vibrantly imagined and illustrated tribute to the magic of the West and its wide-open spaces. Ages 3 to 6. –Publishers Weekly

…cowgirls and cowboys can dance the two-step off into the sunset of this gorgeous picture book. Nakamura’s bold rainbow of paint colors evokes the timeless natural beauty of the American West, and his whooping prose will echo across the mountain peaks of children’s imaginations. Ages three and up. –Foreword Reviews Magazine: Best Children’s Picture Books, Fall 2015

Wolves, coyotes, roadrunners, cowgirls, cacti, mesas, smoke signals, and chile peppers all make an appearance, lending the book the flavor that is at once contemporary, historic, and mythic. It’s a delight for adults as well as children. The author’s full-page illustrations, hand-painted using cactus spines, capture the spirit of the land, and he fills each composition with small details that make a second read more enriching than the first. –Pasatiempo Magazine of Arts, Entertainment & Culture