Cows Can't Fly

by David Milgrim

Overview

Ms. Crumb said cows were far too fat; that facts were facts and that was that. But this little boy doesn't care about facts. All he knows is that he drew a picture of some cows, and when a breeze blows it into the air, he sees cows flying everywhere. And if cows can fly, isn't anything possible?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140567212
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	06/28/2000
Series:	Picture Puffin Books Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	784,527
Product dimensions:	7.69(w) x 9.94(h) x 0.13(d)
Age Range:	3 - 5 Years

About the Author

David Milgrim is theauthor and illustrator ofnumerous picture books,including Young MacDonaldand Cows Can’t Fly. He livesin Wakefield, Rhode Island.
David Milgrim is theauthor and illustrator ofnumerous picture books,including Young MacDonaldand Cows Can’t Fly. He livesin Wakefield, Rhode Island.

Editorial Reviews

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. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

K-Gr 2-A 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 blase 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.Christy Norris Blanchette, Valley Cottage Library, NY

School Library Journal

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)

Kirkus Reviews

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