Till When?: I'll Love You Till The Cows Come Home by Kathryn Cristaldi

I'll love you till the yaks come back

for a crazy snack...

In a Cadillac.

How do I love thee? There are lots of ways in literature to count up how, how much, and how long, and Kathryn Cristaldi's just-published I'll Love You Till the Cows Come Home (Harper, 2018) uses the old saying with a comic twist to answer kids' pertinent question for parents... Till when?

I'll love you till seals set sail
for the Isle of Kale.

Past manatees and a humpback whale....

Love will last till all the yaks climb out of their Caddy, till the ants march in with chocolate cake on their chins, to bed down with geese and wandering sheep, and wolves and deer and frogs who all close their eyes...,

Till the moon sprinkles moondust from the skies....

And with a wonderful bit of rhyming whimsy from author Cristaldi, the cows do come home in the gloaming--from a mission to Mars, disembarking from their spaceship just in time for bed. Artist Kristyna Litten portrays fanciful animals--frogs on big wheels, geese flapping down for a bedtime snack of melty s'mores--and it all ends with the answer to the question: Till when?

I will love you till then, and again and again....

Of this quirky bedtime tale, Kirkus Reviews, jokes, "In a crowded genre, this zany title is out standing in its field—along with the cows."