Moo Who?
PreSchool-Grade 2–When Hilda Mae Heifer gets knocked on the noggin by a cow pie, she wakes up without her "moo." She meets a series of barnyard animals and tries imitating each one. They all tell her she's a cow and ask her questions to prove that she is not their kin, yet she is still "not convinced that mooing was what she should be doing." A cat finally gets her back to normal, and Hilda resumes her loud, off-key mooing, while "everyone else got earplugs." The lost-voice premise is not a new one, but Palatini's way with words and Graves's slightly manic artwork instill the characters and setting with freshness and humor. Strong rhythms, occasional rhymes ("You're no swine. You're bovine"), and a variety of puns ("Are your relatives big boars?") liven up the narrative. The illustrations are filled with purples, blues, and gray-greens, lending a fantastical aura to the farmyard world. The switch to white backgrounds when each creature quizzes the cow paces the tale neatly. Hilda's absurdly prominent purplish nostrils and her enthusiastically goofy facial expressions are right on target. The scholarly goose and the rest of the animal cast each have distinct looks. The vigorous energy of author and artist makes this otherwise basic tale a good choice for reading aloud, or for one-on-one sharing.–Steven Engelfried, Beaverton City Library, ORCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.