Cowboy Up!: Ride the Navajo Rodeo

It's morning at the rodeo. Riders are standing by. Horses are in the chutes. "Cowboy up " the announcer calls. Then the excitement begins in this riveting collection, narrative poems give voice to the individual competitors, lively prose explains rodeo events, and evocative photographs show off the riders and ropers, the horses, bulls, and broncs. It all adds up to an unforgettable close-up view of Navajo rodeo over the course of one action-packed day.

Nancy Bo Flood has worked as a counselor and teacher and has lived in Malawi, Hawaii, Japan, and Saipan, the setting for her young adult novel Warriors in the Crossfire, named a Booklist Top Ten Historical Fiction Title and a Bank Street College Best Children’s Book of the Year. She and her husband now live on the Navajo Nation Reservation in Arizona, where she has experienced, first-hand, the importance of rodeo and the traditions and culture it carries. Her website is nancyboflood.com.

Jan Sonnenmair is a commercial photographer and photojournalist based in Portland, Oregon. She specializes in lifestyle photography, and her work for periodicals such as Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated, and for advertising and design agencies, has taken her all over the world. Cowboy Up! is her first book for children. Her website is sonnenmair.com.