Birthday for Cow!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COW!!!!!

If you look inside the front cover of A Birthday for Cow!, by Jan Thomas, today is indeed Cow's birthday (It's also Sari Long's birthday. Happy Birthday, Sari).

This is another of Maya's new favorites. We read through this one once or twice, then Maya turns back to the beginning and reads to us, careful to turn the pages correctly. Because of the nature of the book, she yells out her version of what we say when we read it and bounces up and down and side to side.

The reason for this animation is that almost every sentence in the book is a bold, red, all-caps exclamation. Pig and Mouse begin to prepare a cake for Cow's birthday. Duck is aghast. "Cake?!"

Duck makes several pleas to include "A TURNIP!" But Mouse and Pig don't agree.

Eventually Cow appears, and you can guess what she is happiest to see. But don't worry, there's a cake for Mouse and Pig to enjoy. Duck and Cow walk off into the sunset proclaiming the glories of turnips.

May I say again how much I love the way Maya interacts with books these days. She can tell if I try to skip a page, and she turns back to the missed one. She comments in her own way to the things she sees on the page.

Oh, and if you have some time, you should do a Google search for the title. I can't believe some of the other images.