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.)

Heavy Duty: Old MacDonald Had A Truck by Steve Goetz

Old MacDonald and the Mrs. are out in their big red farm truck. Are they headin' for the general store to load up on sacks of feed? After all, as we know Old MacDonald has got quite a lot of hungry, noisy livestock back on his place.

But no. They don't turn in at the general store or the Farmers Co-op. They head down the road to the heavy machinery show lot. And in no time the deal is done and...

OLD MACDONALD HAD A FARM. E-I-E-I-O!

AND ON THIS FARM HE HAD AN

EXCAVATOR! E-I-E-I-0!

WITH A DIG, DIG HERE AND A DIG, DIG THERE,

HERE A DIG, THERE A DIG, EVERYWHERE A DIG, DIG.

E-I-E-I-0

Back at the farm the excavator starts clearing the sod for SOMETHING.

A very large plot of land has been prepared. Is Farmer MacDonald putting up a new barn? A silo?

Not yet. MacDonald and his partner are off in the truck again. Soon Old MacDonald's farm has a...

WITH A SCOOP, SCOOP HERE, A SCOOP, SCOOP THERE....

...Followed by a bulldozer, a motor grader, and a ...

DUMP TRUCK (DUMP! THUMP!)... A STEAM ROLLER (SQUISH, SMASH)
AND A CEMENT MIXER (SPIN, WHIRL)

And what's shapin' up at the construction site looks to be downright different--a fer piece from a barn or silo.

MacDonald is busy supervising the hired hands, and Mrs. MacDonald seems to be soupin' up the engine and putting some mighty big wheels and tires on that red truck of theirs.

E-I-E-I-0! It looks like the MacDonald's have themselves a race track for MONSTER TRUCKS... with grandstands and concession stands all ready for the crowd, in Steve Goetz's gearhead spinoff on Old MacDonald's Farm, Old MacDonald Had a Truck (Chronicle Books, 2016). Kids who love heavy construction equipment will find their favorites, along with onomatopoeic operations a-plenty to sing about, and artist Eda Kaban uses vivid pencil and gouache comic livestock and hired hands to lend a jolly note to the construction site as well. The endpapers even sport plenty of hand tools for mechanically minded munchkins to sort out, in an altogether power-packed rebuild of the old nursery song.

"Loads of infectious fun make this a read-aloud treat," says Kirkus' starred review.