Stranger Danger? Click, Clack, Moo I Love You! by Doreen Cronin

IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY ON THE FARM.

But for the head honcho, Farmer Brown, it's first things first. His wheelbarrow, shovel, fork, and hay bales await him early in the morning, keeping the pigs clean (as if!) and the donkey happy. And to keep everyone safe from marauding foxes, he mends the fences.

Farmer Brown does his work, while Little Duck takes charge of the party planning:

SHE TIED BALLOONS TO ... EVERYTHING! SHE HUNG STREAMERS TO... EVERYTHING!

And it's heavy on the paint, glitter and glue with piles of Valentines for everyone on the farm. Little Duck looks like a walking Valentine herself, with paint and glitter all over. But soon Farmer Brown's work and the festive preparations are done, and it's time to PAR-TY!

Little Duck, the hostess with the mostest, meets the guests at the door with Valentines for everyone. Someone cranks up some hoedown music, while the fashionably late sheep head straight for the chips and salsa. The pigs do the porcine polka and the poultry begin to boogie down doin' that chicken dance. Even the barn mice do the hustle. Then the cows show up, bringing a banner touting their alternative shindig.

JOIN US AT THE SECOND ANNUAL DIVINE BOVINE BALL.
FORMAL ATTIRE, PLEASE!

Everybody is busy doin' their own thing. The party is cookin' and rustic fiddle music floats out of the barn and across the starry fields.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE, AT THE TOP OF THE HILL, LITTLE FOX HEARD THE MUSIC. SHE CALLED: YIP, YIP, YIP!

NOBODY ANSWERED. BUT THERE WAS A TRAIL OF VALENTINES TO FOLLOW.

Now, the guests don't exactly welcome a party-crashing fox, not even one with a Valentine trailing from her tail. The chickens freeze in mid-flap. The pigs' trotters stop in their tracks. The sheep cease in mid-munch. And all the mice hustle for their holes, hoping not to become fox hors 'd'oeuvres.

It's an awkward fox-in-the-hen-house moment.

But Little Duck has one handmade Valentine left, and as she graciously hands it to Little Fox with a warm welcome, the party returns to full swing, with everyone trying out the fox trot!

EVERYBODY DANCES WITH EVERYBODY UNTIL...

THE COWS CAME HOME!

It's quite a mixer at the Valentine's Day dance down on the farm, in Doreen Cronin's newest in her beloved bucolic series, Click, Clack, Moo I Love You! (A Click, Clack Book) (Atheneum, 2017). Cronin's sweet story welcomes the spirit of St. Valentine's Day with warmth and humor, and Betsy Lewin's rustic watercolor illustrations of farm critters making merry are as cute and charming as ever. School Library Journal says, "The economical text maximizes impact while giving the illustrations plenty of space to tell the story," and Publishers Weekly adds, "Cronin subtly passes along some sage advice: the best parties have an element of the unexpected."

Cronin and Lewin are, of course, the creators of the top-selling series which began with Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type (A Click, Clack Book) (read reviews here.)