Ghost Towns of the American West

February 1, 2001
Bial's latest photo-essay delves into the mystery of abandoned Western towns and offers insight into the region's boom-and-bust legacy but ultimately disappoints. The volume begins by posing the questions "What sad and joyous events happened within the tumbledown walls and wind-blown streets?" and "Why did people settle in these lonesome places?" Unfortunately, the real draw of the ghost towns was the larger-than-life characters who came through them, and the sense of immediacy and the human cast that made Bial's The Underground Railroad so successful goes missing here. The author's solid research incorporates some primary source quotes and touches on some of the Wild West's best-known incidents (the shoot-out at the OK Corral; Wild Bill Hickock getting shot in the back during a poker game), but never fully captures the flavor of these colorful legends. (Fans of these dark heroes would do better with Andrew Glass's recent Bad Guys.) The best of Bial's photographs zoom in on telling details: a metal sculpture of a prospector, aged to a gray that blends with a cloudy sky; a saloon's windowsill filled with liquor bottles, overtaken by cobwebs and dust, filtering sunlight through plum and moss glass. But a few photos feature the same subjects, and several captions repeat nearly identical wording. Still, for aficionados of the Gold Rush or westward expansion, the photos here are worth a look. Ages 8-12.

February 1, 2001
Gr 4-8-At the heart of Bial's new book are the photographs, most of which are his: sharply focused, brightly colored daytime shots of remaining or restored buildings and the tools and necessities of their former inhabitants, or moody twilit skies against which the silhouettes of old buildings rear up. There is also a scattering of vintage photographs that stand out distinctly from Bial's more vivid approach. The text, in which the author moves from a general discussion of how locales come to be abandoned to a more specific look at the ghost towns of the 19th-century American West and the people who created and vacated them, can be described as an extended essay. Period quotations, especially several from Mark Twain, provide pointed insights into the viewpoints of the people who lived in these communities. Bial also surveys some of the most famous residents of various towns, including the Earp brothers and their involvement in the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral. The lack of an index or a division of the text into thematic or chronological chapters will limit the book's use for reports or research, as might the occasionally romanticized comments. However, this is a topic that has not been recently treated for younger readers, and fans of photography and the Old West will be charmed by the author's details and the clarity of his shots. An extensive bibliography will also guide readers who want to know more to the appropriate books.-Coop Renner, Moreno Elementary School, El Paso, TX

Copyright 2001 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2001
Gr. 3-5. Similar in design to Bial's earlier books, this photo-essay offers views of America's ghost towns and discusses their place in history. Several period photographs from the 1800s show these communities while they flourished, but the book's most effective illustrations are the evocative color photos of ghost towns today. These pictures are notable for their use of light to create moods and to define and reveal characteristics of the abandoned towns. Although the book has no index, it does provide information that students will find useful in understanding the history of these towns and the forces that shaped the West, and reveals the beauty, dignity, and loneliness of the towns as they are today. Bibliography appended. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)