Let's Sing a Lullaby with the Brave Cowboy
In an anything but soothing lullaby, a rather high-strung cowboy tries to strum a pair of little dogies to sleep. He punctuates his somniferous lyrics—It’s time for little cows to rest their heads. / It’s time for little cows to go to bed—with a regular Eeeeek! as he mistakes a shadowy flower, a stick, and a harmless shadow for a spider, a snake, and a large, lumbering bear, respectively. In typically elemental cartoon illustrations, Thomas uses loud colors that don’t always stay within their outlines, and she places her large figures against plain backgrounds of deep blues and purples. Ultimately another shadow actually does turn out to be a huge wolf, but as wolves also love lullabies, the stage is set for a cozy finish. In this, as in Thomas’ other comically manic crowd-pleasers, the only thing wrong is that it’s all over so quickly. Preschool-Grade 2. --John Peters