COW SAYS MEOW

The titular cow’s not the only mixed-up animal.

When the cow says, “Meow,” the kid who hears it, a brown-skinned child with a perfectly round head and shock of straight, black hair, remarks, “What a copycat!” The cat on the next page has something to say about that. It’s not what readers might think. The cat says, “Neigh,” prompting the kid to note, “The cat sounds hoarse!” That makes the horse growl. The kid “can’t bear it,” which summons a bleating bear. Each observation by the increasingly frustrated youngster mentions, sometimes punnily, the big-eyed animal across the gutter. And the animal never says what the kid expects. The whole ball of confusion culminates with a pig saying “Hi!” And when the kid protests, “Pigs don’t say ‘hello’!” a young human (a kid with light-brown skin, freckles, and long, straight brown hair) on the next page brings the story full circle by saying, “Mooo.” This prompts the cow to ask, “Can I say meow again?” Children will giggle over the absurdly wrong sounds the animals make at each page turn as well as the kid’s growing exasperation; all dialogue is presented in speech bubbles. The front and back covers feature eyeholes that allow readers to peer out of the cow face on the front and the cat face on the back; the front endpapers feature animals making the incorrect sounds and the back endpapers have them speaking their own languages. Scott’s textured cartoon illustrations have the look of chalk to them, and their bright silliness is a good match for Call’s wordplay. With its brief text, limited vocabulary, and onomatopoeia, this is also friendly to emergent readers. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-13-inch double-page spreads viewed at 90.8% of actual size.)

A solid addition to the muddled-animal-sounds bookshelf.