Clever Cowboy - Hardcover

Angela McAllister

3.82

22 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0789434911 ISBN 13: 9780789434913

Publisher: Dk Ink, 1998

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When Clever Cowboy is determined to win the pancake tossing competition in Yippeeville, he tosses a flapjack so high that it blocks out the sun, and has to save the day with his giant one-seater frying pan catapult.

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From School Library Journal:

Kindergarten-Grade 3-This original tall tale calls to mind the flapjack segment from Paul Bunyan. Clever Cowboy enters a "pancake tossin'" contest in Yippeville with the hope of winning first prize, a telescope that could help his ma look for his long-lost sister, Kate. The contest is set to begin at high noon, and there's some stiff competition from the likes of Miss Prissy and Fred Farmer. But Clever's lucky pebble provides a "pocketful of luck" and up, up, up his pancakes go until one eclipses the sun and pitches the town into darkness. To correct the situation, Clever devises a "giant elasticated-one-seater-frying-pan catapult" to launch himself up to lasso that pancake right off the sun. Unfortunately, Clever Cowboy is afraid of heights. How the sunlight is rescued and long-lost Kate is found form the denouement of this tongue-in-cheek story. Whimsical artwork that is stylistically similar to Simms Taback's There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (Viking, 1997) and a humorous text give this book plenty of program possibilities. Combine Clever Cowboy with way-out-West stories such as Marjorie Sharmat's Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport (Macmillan, 1980) for a regional theme, or with other tall tales for a program of yarns and whoppers. Or, combine it with totally outrageous food stories for a sampler of literary treats. All in all, lots of flat-out fun.
Roxanne Burg, Thousand Oaks Library, CA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Proving that cowboys don't just herd cattle, this book's mild-mannered title character enters the Yippeeville Pancake Tossin' Competition. Everyone mixes up a mess of batter, and "[a]t twelve noon all the frying pans were spit 'n' sizzling hot." Each cowpoke flips one pancake (it doesn't matter whether they catch it or not) and Clever Cowboy's flies highest. In fact, it seems unlikely to come down at all, because suddenly: "Everything went dark! 'Reckon I tossed that pancake so high it just stuck on the sun and put the lights out,' said Clever." While Yippeeville's citizens hold candles in the "afternoon night," Clever invents a way to retrieve the far-flung flapjack. McAllister (Ice Palace) tells her tall tale in a western vernacular amplified by many a 10-gallon hat. Lodge, making her picture-book debut, favors mock-naive watercolor portraits. Stock characters (a badge-wearing sheriff, a handlebar-mustached judge and smiling ladies in prairie skirts) cheer for the pancake contestants, while horses and rattlesnakes decorate backdrops of scrambled-egg yellow and whimsical pink. The only disappointment is that a masked bandit's identity?revealed as an afterthought?receives so little fanfare. Otherwise, a spirited mood prevails, and the tale ends on an upbeat note with a celebratory hoedown. Ages 4-7.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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