ONLY A COW

Joining the recent stampede of tales about cows looking for ways out of the chew-and-moo routine, this relentlessly average episode drops Lucille, a cow with an urge to be like the racehorse in the next pasture, onto a real track where she proceeds to do her own thing. Following unnoticed as crowds rush into the stadium at the County Fair, Lucille conveniently finds herself at the starting gate. Though the horses lap her twice after the gun goes off, she gamely trots her way around despite moments of self-doubt, and is rewarded by the cheers of the crowd and a share of the winner’s circle. Griffiths matches Hamilton’s bland text with pale watercolors that reveal a shaky grasp of rendering eyes and mouths. However worthy the general theme may be, considering the plethora of recent takes on it this will be left in the dust behind the likes of George Shannon’s Secret Chicken Club (2005), illustrated by Deborah Zemke, Carol Weis’s When the Cows Got Loose (2006), illustrated by Art Hoyt, or Ros Hill’s Shamoo: A Whale of a Cow (2005). (Picture book. 6-8)