I was drawn to the Bill Pickett book by the illustrations on the cover. It is a beautiful scratch-board drawing, Brian Pickney's specialty, of Bill Pickett riding a bull with a crowd cheering. The rest of the illustrations follow the same scratch-board with oil paint technique.

I would use this book to have students ask and answer the who, what, where, when, why, and how. I would also have them identify the main topic.

The true story of the amazing cowboy-child that became the most famous black rodeo performer who ever lived. This would be a great read to help introduce biographies and history aspects in the class room. ( )

This book is about a man named Bill Pickett who was born into slavery, and worked on a ranch when he was young. He soon figures out how to wrestle cows to the ground by biting them on their lip and becomes a famous rodeo cowboy when he gets older. He travels the world performing his bulldogging stunt in front of large and sometimes famous audiences who cheer him on and give him the name Dusky Demon.

I really enjoyed this story it was a nice portrait of a person overcoming the odds of being ethnical different, bound to slavery, to becoming a famous person that multitudes cheered for. The author did a fabulous job of incorporating the true-life details of Bill Pickett and the illustrations were stunning, life-like drawings, which flowed very well with the text.

Since the story is a little bit lengthy, I would have my students write in their journals about which part of the story was their favorite and why, and I might also have them list one thing about the story that they would like to change and tell the reason for the change. Also, to relate to the story, I would have a fun craft project. I would have pre-made cowboy hat patterns with felt material and a stapler to let my class make their own cowboy hats, so they could be cowboys and cowgirls like Bill Pickett. Another project would be to have the students make a mobile with pictures and excerpts from the story, to chronologically re-tell the story with pictures and words, and the students could then present their mobiles to the rest of the class.

This is a great biography for young readers of Bill Picket a black rodeo cowboy from Texas who lived until 1932. He also worked at various ranches. The illustrations by Brian Pinkney are scratchboard hand colored with oil paint. The swirling lines give the pictures the feeling of action in the rodeo.