Friday, March 18, 2011

Cow's Can't Fly...or can they?

This particular book ended up in my collection from an old text book series from when I was a teacher.  I passed it over many times when reading with my daughter simply because it was from a text book series.  Boy what a mistake that was.  My daughter and I LOVE reading this story by David Miligrim.  She absolutely loves that this story is silly and she loves to supply the words to the rhymes.

Cows Can't Fly is a story written in rhyme.  My absolute favorite part of the story is on the third page.  The boy has just drawn some cows that fly.  He realizes that cows cannot fly, but he doesn't care.  When he shows his father the picture the author writes, "Why, that's absurd," my father said.  "Why don't you draw some birds instead?" I'm not sure what makes me love this line so much, although I suppose its the use of the word absurd.  I can just picture my daughter using this word after a few more reads and grasping the meaning of the word.  "Mommy, Daddy's being absurd."  I can't wait!

The pictures in this book are really cute, however, I think the cows look more like large dogs in parts of the book.  This doesn't seem to confuse my daughter though.  She knows that they are cows, and on a recent trip to Disney, she repeatedly pointed out the cows on the side of the road, often calling them silly cows.  I imagine she was thinking about this book and picturing the cows flying.  

Overall, this is a great story for kids and fairly entertaining for parents.  Even without "teaching" by the parent, this book begins to teach rhyming and creativity.  It can also be used to teach sequencing and the difference between fiction and reality.  Yes, some of the things in this book could happen, but no, cows cannot actually fly.  This book is definitely going to stay in the book collection for a long time!

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