Review by New York Times Review
In a little anywhere town, a small boy in a big hat with "SHERIFF" taped to the front goes to the bakery with his deputy dog. "Their mission? To bring a dozen donuts safely home." The real threat to the doughnuts is the sheriff himself, who can't resist peeking in the box. Soon there's one doughnut missing and a trail of evidence as obvious as the sheriff's guilty conscience. With McGhee's light humor and Roxas' appealing and gentlyhued illustrations, this tale of doughnut perfidy takes the cake. COWBOY BOYD AND MIGHTY CALLIOPE By Lisa Moser. Illustrated by Sebastiaan Van Doninck. 40 pp. Random House. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 3 to 7) "No doubt about it, folks knew Boyd and Calliope were different the moment they rode onto the Double R Ranch." There's something about Calliope that's more rhino than rodeo, and Boyd, a sweet-faced cowpoke, has to talk Rancher Rose into giving them work. "You won't regret it," he says. "I got a real strong belief in Calliope." Moser's use of cowboy cadence punctuated by noises like "Ker-thud!" and "Blam!" will have readers raising a ruckus loud enough to keep the coyotes at bay. STANDING IN FOR LINCOLN GREEN Written and illustrated by David Mackintosh. 32 pp. Abrams. $16.95. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) If Mackintosh hasn't already won you over with "Marshall Armstrong Is New to Our School" and "The Frank Show," this new story, about a boy who'd rather play than do his chores, is sure to. Mackintosh's voice is engaging, but it's the look of his pages that will have readers - and lap listeners - marveling at the variety of perspective, color and composition that make "Standing In for Lincoln Green" such a standout. COWPOKE CLYDE AND DIRTY DAWG By Lori Mortensen. Illustrated by Michael Allen Austin. 32 pp. Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) No so fast, pardner! Turns out Cowpoke Clyde is better at lassoing cattle than wrangling his flea-ridden friend Dawg into the tub. At last, Clyde decides to wash himself instead. "He cleared the mess and grabbed some grub,/heated water, filled the tub./Then, soakin' sweet beneath the moon,/he warbled out a cowpoke tune." He's not alone for long. Austin's exaggeratedly slim Clyde and highly animated animals should round up even reluctant readers. PANCHO RABBIT AND THE COYOTE A Migrant's Tale Written and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh. 2 pp. Abrams. $16.95. (Picture book; ages 6 to 9) A drought forces Papá Rabbit to leave the rancho to look for work, and when he fails to return, his son Pancho sets off to find him. The happy ending doesn't quite reassure: Pancho's adventure is a scary one, leaving him at the mercy of a predatory coyote, without food and drink, and his rescue does not solve the problem of sustenance. Sadly, Tonatiuh's picture-book format is probably pitched too young for children ready to read about these very real dangers. WHAT IF YOU MET A COWBOY? Written and illustrated by Jan Adkins. 48 pp. Roaring Brook Press. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 6 to 9) "Much of what we think of as the Wild West was simply made up," Adkins writes, setting straight the legends popularized by William Frederick Cody (aka Buffalo Bill) : "The myth was ballyhoo, but the man behind it was absolutely genuine." Adkins, who illustrates his book with handsome sepia-based pen-and-ink sketches, can really turn a phrase, and his detailed histories of cattle in the United States and the varieties and uses of barbed wire are pithy as well as fascinating. ONLINE A slide show of this week's illustrated books at nytimes.com/books.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 15, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
Adkins (What If You Met a Pirate?, 2004) strips away the romance of the Wild West to present a warts-and-all profile of the classic cowboy. Through profiles, labeled diagrams, and fact sidebars, Adkins debunks the myth of the sharp-shooting hero of the American West and introduces readers to a more authentic figure. Cowboys were smelly drifters in a dead-end job who valued their saddles over their horses. And cowgirls were nonexistent, just part of the exaggerated fantasy fed to an audience back East as keen for adventure as they were for beef. Readers will meet Buffalo Bill, the Franciscan padres who taught Native Americans to ride horses, and the most influential man on a cattle drive: the beanwalloper in his chuck wagon. Adkins' tone is conversational and sometimes irreverent. His discussion of the range wars between the independent ranchers and the powerful cattle associations that carved up the plains for their own financial gain has a ring of modern big-business tension. The earthy, realistic illustrations break up the text, providing color and a whole lot of close-up detail.--Dean, Kara Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Horn Book Review
Adkins attempts to dispel the popular image of the American cowboy--the ruggedly-handsome-adventurous-guy-in-a-white-hat stereotype fostered by movies and television. Nineteenth-century cowboy Jacob Peavey serves as a prototype that exemplifies the realities of the arduous and sometimes brutal world that existed on the Western frontier. Detailed sepia drawings add to the honest, informative narrative. Reading list. Glos., ind. (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Following other books in the What if You Met(a Pirate, 2004; a Knight, 2006) series, this title somewhat less successfully tackles the subject of cowboys. The image of the handsome cowboy idealized in movies, on the lookout for pretty schoolteachers and Indians on the warpath, is shattered by Jacob McHugh Peavey, the real deal, unwashed and unshaven. Only careful readers will determine that Jakes heyday was around 1860-1885. Hes white, although Adkins notes that [a]bout half of [cowboys] are African-American, Indian, or Hispanic. Cowgirls are dismissed in a side note. Given this limited perspective, youngsters interested in diversity in the Wild West will want to look elsewhere. Those not familiar with the history of Native Americans may require a source to understand potentially confusing descriptions of Franciscan missionaries who introduced horses in the Southwest as relatively gentle and patient conquerors who received an assist from European diseases or the hostile native tribes or youth that may on occasion pose a threat to Jake. (Source notesa list of titles consultedare provided, but there are no specific citations.) However, children enamored of cowboy gear and cattle drives will find a plethora of information about and detailed illustrations of saddles, guns, brands, the chuck wagon and more, each topic covered in one or two pages. As Wild Bill Hickok says in his blurb: Factual as far as it goes. (glossary, further reading, index) (Nonfiction. 8-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
