Bobby Bluestem

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Bobby Bluestem is a blade of prairie tall grass. He is a happy little
herb, waving in the endless prairie with his innumerable siblings
through summer drought and winter cold. Bobby does not mind the passing
seasons, nor the bison who bite him to the roots, nor even the
occasional First Nations person weaving him into a “beautiful
basket.”

Suddenly, the New People arrive. They use machines to uproot Bluestems
like Bobby to plant strange plants in their place. The New People also
pour cement onto the prairie to build homes for themselves. Bobby and
the other prairie plants cry out in terror, half convinced that these
New People are too ignorant to hear them. But someone does hear! Prairie
environmentalists intervene and Bobby is saved—albeit to live on a
reservation where only he and the New People can play. Tough luck,
bisons and First Nations basket weavers.

The writing and illustration are both by Rhonda O’Grady, an
environmental educator working in Winnipeg. Although O’Grady’s work
is painfully earnest, it has all the appeal of an overworked Sunday
School lesson. Not recommended.