But almost as soon as the book came out, children in Yuma itself read it and realized that the hill it told about was right in their own town. And far from the hill itself, children in Korea, Pakistan and Japan now dream of Roxaboxen too the story is available editions translated into their languages. (Although I call her by her given name in the book, “Tahe” was the nickname all her friends and family used.) “At last I’ll get some respect from my grandchildren!” this beloved aunt told me happily. My aunt was thrilled to discover when the book came out that Barbara had dedicated the art in it “to my Roxaboxen guide, Tahe. During that trip the two became real friends. I took the photo to the left just before Barbara and my aunt Frances left for a trip together to Yuma - where the artist had her first glimpse of Roxaboxen, with Frances there to tell her about all they did back then.

Before she began the art this justly-famous artist learned - as I myself had done before I began to write the text - just about everything possible about Roxaboxen - from my mother’s handwritten 1916 book, from all the information I had my aunts and others still alive who had played there - and of course from my own memories of what my mother had told me when she was alive. The words I wrote to tell about this memorable place created by children were published as a book in 1991 with luminous illustrations by Barbara Cooney.

Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran