Let's Sing a Lullaby with the Brave Cowboy (review)

The titular "brave cowboy" is really anything but, as he is frightened by a number of ordinary things in the course of singing his cows to sleep. As usual, Thomas deftly sets up a predictable and comical pattern of events, and then throws in a twist at the end. Here the cowboy keeps singing the same three lines of a lullaby, interrupting himself each time to shout "EEEK!" at things like a flower (in the dark, he thinks it is a "huge hairy spider") or a stick (a "slimy slithering snake"), only to be reassured by the cows who helpfully identify the objects. Just when the cowboy starts to catch on, however, a wolf approaches and the cowboy decides that the shaggy, growling shape he notices must be "a big giant bunny rabbit. Right?" Fortunately, it turns out that wolves enjoy a good lullaby as much as the rest of us, and the cowboy resumes his song with the pajama-clad wolf obligingly finishing the last line when the cowboy falls asleep. The digitally created illustrations are appropriately rendered in nocturnal shades of dark blues and purples, and Thomas' depiction of the mistaken objects (the first sighting of the object shows it as a gray silhouette against the background, while a page turn shows the object in colored detail) invites the audience to guess at the silhouetted object's identity. The repeated song lyrics and "EEEK!"s, the bold simplicity of the illustrations' compositions, and the hilarious facial expressions of the characters all ensure that this will be a hit with young audiences, who will also understand the cowboy's fear of things that look "different" in the dark. This is a surefire audience-participation hit for library programs, classrooms, and lively bedtime read-aloud sessions.