Eclectic Amateur

Just found Sixteen Cows by Lisa Wheeler and Kurt Cyrus. It’s a romantic bit of rhyming whimsey about Cowboy Gene and Cowgirl Sue and their eight cows each. The kids love it; it gets the “Again!” seal of approval from Rachel.

I picked it up at the library because I’ve really liked Kurt Cyrus’s work before. Slow Train to Oxmox was one of our favorites for Josh and David a few years ago, and Tangle Town is great too. (Amazon.com claims both are out of print, which is really too bad.) Funny, inteligent enough for the adults, silly enough for the kids, and beautifully illustrated — what more do you need?

Favorites from the previous library haul were Get Set! Swim! and Hello, Ocean. (Hmm, I’m sensing a water theme for last week …) I was all set to not like Get Set! Swim! for being too PC (our heroine is Puerto Rican, there’s a small bit of angst about having to compete against the rich suburban schools who Have It All™), but it turns into a very nice little story of sportsmanship, and I ended up liking it anyway. I thought Hello, Ocean was OK as far as the writing went, but the illustrations are gorgeous (and Nancy and I are both jealous that they depict the beach outside the author’s home). Both of these made the “read it again and again!” list for the last few weeks.