Brave Nadine: I Am Cow, Hear Me Moo! by Jill Esbaum

NADINE WAS A TRULY REMARKABLE COW.
THERE WAS NOTHING SHE FEARED. . .

SO SHE CLAIMED, ANYHOW.

Nadine's fellow heifers are dubious. They cite supposedly scary things like lightning and loud noises.

I'M NOT SCARED OF ANY OF THAT!" she sniffs.

Her sister bovines call her bluff. How about the deep, dark woods, huh? they taunt.

Secretly, Nadine knows that the woods are pretty scary, but now that she has boasted that she's the bravest of bovines, she has to follow through. She offers to lead her buddies in a woodland walk.

At first all goes swimmingly. Starla and Annette give Nadine a nudge up a tree, and she moos contentedly from the treetop.

"I AM COW. HEAR ME MOO!"

Her walk on the wild side is turning out to be a success. Starla and Annette are clearly impressed. The three sample blackberries and sniff fragrant pine cones like veteran woodsmen. But then, Starla notices that it's getting darker in the woods and points out that they soon won't be able to see how to find their way home. Nadine is swinging from a branch and reluctant to end her bravado tour. But then she spots the opening of a dark cave. What a way to show off how brave she really is!

Have you ever noticed that storybook characters ALWAYS go into the dark cave?

So of course, Nadine does. Like a tourist, she leisurely checks out the cave drawings and the sleeping bats, until she spies something that makes even her udder shudder--a pile of bones and a cow skull.

Does the fearless Nadine panic? Yes!

She dashes right out of the cave, looking back for pursuing bears, and runs right off a cliff.

Down she dives, luckily landing in an icy stream, on the banks of which she finds her bovine buddies milling around, lost and leaderless. "If you desire a virtue, assume it and it shall be yours," said Benjamin Franklin, and Nadine follows his advice. Moo-hoo-hoooo! Let's hoof it, heifers!

And when Nadine leads her little herd back home at a full gallop, Starla and Annette hail her as a hero.
Nadine knows better. She knows she should stop basking in the praise and tell them the truth.

"BUT SHE SORTA FORGOT."

Jill Esbaum's latest, I Am Cow, Hear Me Moo! (Dial Books, 2014), is the story of a bloviating bovine who has to save face and make good on her boasts whether she wants to or not.  Artist Gus Gordon's comic illustrations of Esbaum's not-so-courageous cow who finds her inner heroine after all are full of deliciously humorous details that make this one udderly delightful as a self-read or group readaloud.

Tractor Tale: Otis by Loren Long

There was once a friendly little tractor. His name was Otis, and every day Otis and his farmer worked together taking care of the farm they called home. Otis loved to work.

Every night, tired but happy, Otis would puff into the little stall in the barn that was his.

One night when Otis was fast asleep, the farmer brought a beautiful baby calf into the barn. The calf bawled and bawled for her mother, but when the sleepy sound of a soft putt puff puffedy chuff came from the next stall, the scared little calf stopped bawling and drifted off to sleep.

It's a perfect blendship of a friendship, as after work Otis the tractor and the little calf kick up their heels and wheels together until they tire. Then together they sit quietly under the apple tree before they head off to sleep contentedly in their neighboring stalls.

Then one day Progress rears its head, and Otis finds himself exiled to the weedy back of the barn while a brand-new big yellow tractor takes his place in the barn and in the fields. Calf and Otis grieve apart, each missing the other's quiet company in their snug stalls, while Otis rusts and vines overgrow his wheels and gears.

Then disaster strikes. The beautiful little calf gets herself stuck in the pond. The farmhands try pulling her out with a rope. Failing, they call on the big yellow tractor and the big red firetruck, but the little calf only sinks deeper with each effort.

Then the little calf's ears perk up.

Over the hum of the growing crowd, there came a faint sound in the distance.... a soft rhythmic putt puff puffedy chuff and all at once Otis putt puffed from around the barn. He turned and headed straight toward Mud Pond.

Trailing broken vines behind him, it's Otis chuffing along speedily to the rescue. He circles the pond in a version of their favorite game, Ring around the Rosey, and the little calf turns around and around until she suddenly finds herself free and stumbles out of the pond to meet her lost-and-found old friend. Otis is redeemed and soon finds his place again, inspiring the chickens to lay with his gentle chuff and sometimes helping out the big yellow tractor in the fields.

But often at the end of the day, Otis would just sit with his friend under the apple tree and watch the farm below.

In his softly rounded lines and controlled palette, author-illustrator Loren Long reverently evokes the spirit of Virginia Lee Burton, Hardy Gramatsky, and Munro Leaf in his latest and already best-selling story of an unlikely friendship lost and found, Otis (Philomel, 2009), even silhouetting the calf under the tree in Ferdinand's familiar pose. But the theme of a redeeming friendship is evergreen, and this story is surely on its way to becoming one of the classics.

Too Much of a Good Thing!: Too Many Pears!

Jackie French's Too Many Pears! portrays a bovine binge eater named Pamela who has an obsession with pears--fresh pears, stewed pears, pears on picnics, and especially pear pie, which she purloins from the windowsill as it cools.

When Grandpa builds a protective fence around the pear tree, Pamela burrows underground to get at them; when he ties her up, she uproots the tree she's tied to and drags it along to pursue pear munching. The family despairs of ever having a pear to share again.

Then young Amy hits on a plan of providing Pamela with a plentitude of pears, so many pears that even Pamela reaches her satiation point! Amy's bet pays off. Pamela reaches that point after crunching 600 pears, loses her happy smile, and all interest in pears--in perpetuity. Fortunately (or unfortunately for the family), there ARE all those lovely apples hanging on another tree!

Bruce Whatley's illustrations are perfect, with Pamela as a huge Holstein with a spot in the shape of a pear on her right flank and one spot in the shape of an apple on her left side. His illustrations of the character's eyes are particularly expressive and hilarious, and his watercolor double-page spreads, firmly grounded on the bottom of each page, are particularly effective against their white background. Pamela's single-minded pursuit of pears is perfectly rendered in her solid body and smiling face as she stolidly follows her bliss!