This engaging book tells about a young boy's coming-of-age in an isolated rural community around the turn of the last century, and about the special baskets made by the people who live in the hills above the Hudson River. For years, the child has been eager to join his father on his monthly walk to the nearby town to sell the baskets. Pa always goes at the time of the "basket moon" (the full moon) because he needs its light to find his way home. Finally, after the boy's ninth birthday, he accompanies his father to town. He is excited by all the new things he sees there, but when a townie taunts them with "A tisket, a tasket, hillbilly basket! That's all a bushwhacker knows," he is devastated. He wants nothing further to do with basket making and wants his family to stop, too. One of his father's helpers, seeing the boy's distress, helps him to understand the artistic nature of their craft, and to value such work. The story is told by the boy in lyrical prose, and is graced by Cooney's soft-hued oil-and-acrylic paintings. The artist makes the mountains and forests glow with a suffused light that enhances their beauty and softens the family's hard life, and she artistically incorporates the various steps of basket making described in the text. An afterword explains a little of the history of these baskets and the people who made them. A luminous and deeply satisfying look back in time. Virginia Golodetz, Children's Literature New England, Burlington, VT Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.