First they read the book about making special celebration days. They read about Dust Devil Day and Three Rainbows Day and Jack Rabbit Day and then they came to Green Cloud Day and Jakes let out a whoop, "We already have a Green Cloud Celebration Day! It's TODAY!"

Then they read Desert Voices about Pack Rat and Spadefoot Toad and Rattlesnake and Cactus Wren and Buzzard. Dustin said, "Read it again." And she did but the third time he asked she went on to the next book.

They read Hawk, I'm Your Brother, about Ruby Soto and his friend Hawk and Dustin said it was his favorite because it was about flying. "I can do that," he added mysteriously. Jakes wasn't sure if he meant he could fly or that he could talk to birds. Then it was time for snacks.

After snacks, it was still a cool foggy day with clouds streaming by the house so after lunch they settled in again with the books. "It's hard to pick a favorite but I think this is mine," said Jakes, opening the orange and yellow cover with the huge sun on it: The Table Where Rich People Sit.

"If you could see us sitting here at our old scratched-up homemade kitchen table, you'd know that we aren't rich," she began. "But my father is trying to tell us we are..." They read how Mountain Girl wanted her parents to get better jobs so they could buy nice new things and how they could make more money working in town someplace instead of farming. "Remember our number one rule," her father said, "we have to see the sky." Mountain Girl's mother gives her a pencil and some yellow paper and has her write down all the things that make them rich. "We don't just take our pay in cash, you know," says her mother, "we have a special plan so we get paid in sunsets, too, and in having time to hike around the canyons and look for eagle nests." The family agrees that that's probably worth about twenty thousand dollars every year. Then they figure out what it's worth to them to hear the coyotes howling and see the cactus bloom and see animals in the wild and a whole lot more things too, like sleeping out under the stars.

Before she got to the end, Jakes said to Dustin, "How rich do you think they are if they add everything up?"

Dustin, who didn't care much about money himself, said slowly, "Well... maybe... fifty hundred monies and three twenty-fives cent-es," and he kept flashing all the fingers on both hands until he got tired of it and then he said, "what are you reading next?" And they spent the whole afternoon reading The Other Way to Listen and The Desert Is Theirs and Everybody Needs a Rock.

And when they were finished, Dustin said, "These are the realest books because they're about how the world really is."

The Table Where Rich People Sit
Written by Byrd Baylor, pictures by Peter Parnall
Aladdin Paperbacks, July 1998
ISBN 0689820089

Ask for Byrd Byron and Peter Parnall's books at your local library. They both create books independently, but they're best when they work together.

Other books by Byrd and Peter: The Way to Start a Day; Everybody Needs a Rock; The Other Way to Listen; Desert Voices; I'm in Charge of Celebrations; Your Own Best Secret Place; Hawk, I'm Your Brother; and others.