The Cow Who Clucked (review)

One morning, Cow wakes up and emits a gentle cluck instead of her usual moo; understandably dismayed at the transmogrification of her voice, she searches the countryside to see who has her moo. She cluckingly interviews a dog ("Warf, warf"), a bee ("Bzzzzz, bzzzzz"), a cat ("Meow"), and so on, sadly concluding each time that "It is not you who has my moo." Finally she wanders past Hen, whose greeting of "Moo, moo" tips Cow off to the perpetrator, and she rights the situation. While the unclearness of the mechanism for the repair (and the initial tradeoff) may perplex some audience members, this is a diverting barnyard outing that takes the basic mismatched-utterance joke, long a picture-book classic, and turns it into a satisfying join-in tour of animal sounds; careful repetition in textual phrases as well as in the sounds will keep youngsters involved throughout Cow's peregrinations. Fleming's usual handmade-paper art evinces rich, vivid colors and some lively touches in the group of yellow chicks that follow Cow around (well, she is clucking) and Cow's cartoony startled eyes; the darkening colors of the sky toward the end of the day mean that the predominantly brown Cow doesn't stand out as well as viewers might wish, but twilight highlights of turquoise and crimson help distinguish her from the background. Little lapsitting and rugsitting critters will welcome this playful agricultural excursion.