by Moe Zilla

Created on: August 26, 2010

It's another sequel to "Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type" - sort of. Five years after the original, author Doreen Cronin teamed up again with illustrator Betsy Lewin for more funny drawings of the animals on a farm. But this time the plot's very abstract, since they're creating what's known as an "alphabet book". Every page contains just two words, starting with the same letter. But they've carefully strung them all together into a kind of story.

I have to admit I was a little disappointed, since the title really implied this was a direct sequel to their earlier book. (Farmer Brown had discovered that his cows could type, and then suffered through a series of typed demands for warm electric blankets for the barn.) He'd eventually resolved the situation by having a neutral party - a duck - deliver his own counter-proposal, which the cows accepted. (In exchange for the blankets, they'd surrender their typewriter - and they promised to have the duck deliver it.) But instead of receiving the typewriter, he'd just received more typewritten demand letters, this time from the ducks. "Dear Farmer Brown, The pond is quite boring. We'd like a diving board..."

That story won a Caldecott honor - and it seems like an alphabet book could make good use of
cows with a typewriter. But instead, they only appear on the C page, where their sentence is "Clickety-clack!" The word "cows" never even appears in the book, though they're seen in the illustration - along with a duck. They're staring at their typewriter in fascination (maybe contemplating their next demand). But there's an even more direct allusion to their previous book, if you study the first two pictures carefully.

Animals awake
Beneath blue blankets.

It looks like the pesky animals got their (blue) electric blankets after all.  Illustrator Betsy Lewin makes a point of drawing a cord to the blanket, so there's no mistaking their victory. It's chickens under the blanket in the "B" drawing, but she'll make sure you don't miss the happy ending. In the "C" drawing - "Clickety-clack!" - the cows and the duck are all doing their typing...from underneath blue blankets!

The lively drawings of funny farm animals should keep the attention of younger readers. And I was impressed that there's at least a loose story tying the drawings together, which also adds some excitement. There's Goats grooming, hens helping...watermelons waiting, and X marks the picnic spot! All the animals were busy preparing for a sunny celebration in a grass field behind the barn!

Though judging from the end of the book, all the food and the fun just left them exhausted.

Yawns yawning!
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

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