If you are familiar with the writing of Kathi Appelt, it will come as no surprise that she gets into the minds of animals to tell a spellbinding story. She does this again in her new middle grade novel, Once Upon a Camel. The book opens as a dust storm blanket bears down in the middle of Texas mountain lion territory in 1910. The old camel Zada takes on the task of saving two kestrel chicks who ride in the fluff on the top of her head as she tries to outdistance the storm. Meanwhile, their parents, Perlita and Pard, become separated from each other and their chicks.
Zada keeps the chicks calm and entertained with her stories. Some of them are imaginative. Some are memoirs of her beginnings with her camel friend Asiye as they win camel races for the Pasha of Smyrna back in 1850 before they come to Texas. They rode with thirty-two other camels on a US Navy ship through rough weather to become part of an experiment where they would become pack animals.
Even as Zada spins her stories, she worries. Will she be able to find the Mission and safety? Will the kestrel parents get through the storm and find the babies? And then there is the tricky mountain lion, Ponce de Leon. She needs to take shelter in his cave with the baby kestrels, but will he turn up?
While Kathi draws the tense reader into the story of worry and peril of the adults in the story – Perlita, Pard, and Zada – an equally talented Eric Rohmann paints their pictures. Together they have made a book that will be loved by middle graders and anyone who appreciates a good story with beautiful pictures.