Cows Can't Fly - Softcover

David Milgrim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 043906001X ISBN 13: 9780439060011

Publisher: Scholastic, Inc, 1999

Synopsis

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. If cows can fly, isn't anything possible?

About this title

From the Back Cover

Cows can't fly but I don't care. One day I drew some in the air!

And when a breeze blows the boy's drawing into the air, suddenly cows CAN fly! They're flying over his house, they're flying over the school, they're flying all over the place. Unfortunately, no one sees them but him. But he knows the truth -- if cows can fly, isn't anything possible?

With a lively, rhyming text and hilarious illustrations, this appealing picture book is sure to be a hit.

Reviews

Kindergarten-Grade 2AA fanciful book in which a boy's imagination takes flight. In reserved rhyming verse, the story tells of what happens when the young narrator's picture of flying cows is caught by the wind and eventually settles in a cow pasture. Obviously impressionable, the cows themselves lift off the ground and take flight. The child is delighted to see the bovine airships, but can not convince any adults to look upward to take in the amazing sight. "Ms. Crumb said cows were far too fat; that facts were facts, and that was that." Of course, as the adults rattle off their blas? logic, the airborne creatures loom largely in the background with outstretched hooves. The rounded cartoon illustrations are featured on full double-page spreads throughout. Milgrim's illustrations make flying cows seem perfectly natural. In the end, the incredulousness of the adults does not discourage this imaginative boy. Instead, he sets off to discover which other animals may be capable of flight. A perfect stimulant for young imaginations, as well as for kids who feel their exclamations are overlooked by the adults around them.AChristy Norris Blanchette, Valley Cottage Library, NY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The title's assertion is a perfect set-up for a small boy to prove otherwise, in this merry tale of self-fulfilling prophecy from Milgrim (Dog Brain, 1996). The nameless protagonist narrates: ``Cows can't fly,/but I don't care./One day I drew/some in the air!'' The round-headed boy creates a crayon picture of rapturous cows soaring through the sky. His bespectacled, suspenders-wearing father is appropriately nay-saying, but a breeze takes the picture into the air; it lands among real cows, who study the drawing and take flight. With unusual perspectives and stylized rounded forms, the scenes are highly entertaining; no adults will look into the air, a fact that draws readers into a gleeful conspiracy with the boy, who takes the experiment further. He's seen in the last spread staring at an array of zoo animals, a drawing pad under his arm. (Picture book. 3-8) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

When the narrator of this featherweight tale crayons two orange cows against a bright blue sky, he is told to get real: " 'Why, that's absurd,' my father said./ 'Why don't you draw/ some birds instead?' " The plot takes a fantasy turn when a breeze blows the drawing down to the prairie and convinces a herd of real steers to take to the air. Once Milgrim (Dog Brain) launches the cows, however, he doesn't quite know what to do with them. As the brown animals float like balloons across a pale-blue horizon, the author employs a proven child-appealing strategy: only the young artist notices that his idea has taken flight, and the adults ignore the boy's insistent pointing at the sky ("Ms. Crumb said cows/ were far too fat;/ that facts were facts/ and that was that"). The cows then leave without a trace, which may leave some readers mystified. Although the cartoonlike art is unusually cheerful, the story seems unresolved. Ages 3-8.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ages 3^-6. A little boy draws a picture of flying cows and shows it to his father, who suggests that his son draw birds instead. A gust of wind lifts the picture into a pasture where it inspires the cows there to take flight. "They flapped and flew / and filled the sky, / quite unaware / that cows can't fly." Milgrim's expressive line-and-watercolor artwork gives the simple story a lift of its own. Using unusual perspectives and an imagination as vivid as any child's, Milgrim creates cows that soar like excitable blimps across the sky. Meanwhile, back on the ground, the boy's parents can't be bothered to look out the window, and his teacher draws a diagram illustrating the effect of gravity on massive objects. Never mind. The boy has found his inspiration. Unlike many books with a message, the point here is so lightly made that it doesn't weigh down the story. In the deftly drawn illustrations, comic effects abound, and cartoon-style balloons allow the characters to comment outside the rhyming text. Appealing to the dreamer, the artist, and the anarchist in every child, this picture book will be great fun to read aloud. Carolyn Phelan

Edition details

• Publisher: Scholastic, Inc
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 043906001X
• ISBN 13: 9780439060011
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 32