MY BARN
by Craig Brown & illustrated by Craig Brown
From cock-crow to moonrise, a farmer moves around his barn, feeding and observing his animals. On each page, the simple, repetitive text (``I like the sound/gobble gobble.../the sound a turkey makes,'' with only the animal name and voice changing) captions a picture of the farmer with one kind of animal. Like Brown's illustrations for The Patchwork Farmer (1989), these are composed of multitudes of tiny black dots washed in soft color, with barn red and muted blues and greens predominating here. The result is pleasing but lacks animation; setting and atmosphere are emphasized more than the animals. Still, an offbeat introduction to animal voices, worth a try where funds permit. (Picture book. 2-6)