Cow

The involving illustrations and text in this picture book introduce young children of about age three to age five to the texture of a cow’s day from early morning to nightfall. This might not sound engrossing – but somehow it is.

How does the book work so well? The large format – for a large creature – helps and so do the fine double spreads (yes, they deserve praise here!). The illustrator’s oil paintings give an exquisite, and sometimes rather dream-like, view of the rural landscape. And the animals, contented if rather solemn, are beautifully painted too, often in stunning close-ups showing their liquid brown eyes, pink moist muzzles and big patterned bodies. We get a tremendous sense of creatures living through the long, hot day – grazing, swishing their tails, resting in the midday sun and ambling to the milking parlour. They may not have very varied lives, but children will be helped to see them as calm and useful creatures driven by instinctive longings and worthy of our respect. Talk will arise from the glimpses of the people who work in the countryside and of the farmer’s children going to school through the fields and returning home at the end of the day. This fine introduction to an aspect of living in the country would be a welcome addition to the nursery school collection or to the bookshelf at home.