Little Cowgirl Book Club: COWBOY

There's almost no need to review a DK Eyewitness book -- I have yet to see one I didn't think was fantastic and this one is no exception. Tons and tons of great photos showing every aspect of cowboy/cowgirl life, from historical to modern. The text  is actually more extensive than you'd think in a photo-heavy book -- it would be a good reference even without so many photos. Everything from the origins of cowboy techniques to 20th century cowboy culture. And the photos! Every bit and bob of gear is shown and labelled. I think the Little Cowgirl was partial to the horse descriptions; I loved the fully equipped antique chuck wagon. A must-read.

Check it out on Amazon; or find it at your local library!

Little Cowgirl Book Club: I Wonder Why Horses Wear Shoes

This book is from the great Kingfisher I Wonder Why series (we've got tons of them) - basically they're a sort of kid's FAQ picture book; each book collects 30 or so interesting questions on a subject and answers them. This book covers all sorts of horse questions, including "Which horses do cowhands ride?"; "When did people first tame horses?"; "and of course, "Why do horses wear shoes?"
The Little Cowgirl loves these books, so this one was a shoe-in.  (Har-har.) Highly recommended!

Check it out on Amazon; or find it at your local library!

Little Cowgirl Bookclub: Hannah Mae O'Hannigan's Wild West Show

How can you not love a book subtitled, Featuring Her Trusty Cow Pony 'Sassafras'?? Even without that subtitle this book would be in our top ten picture book list. Hannah herself is a character many parents know -- that kid who fancies themselves in a lifestyle that's not a great fit for where they live. In this case, it's a wanna-be cowgirl who lives in the city, a situation I know well!

Hannah's first gift as a baby is a cowboy hat and from there her path in life is set. Instead of trying to rein in their little cowgirl, her parents try to find ways to let her practice cowgirl skills (ponies in central park! wrangling a herd of hamsters!) and when she's ready, they send her off to help out on her Uncle Coot's ranch (Coot is the source of the cowboy hat that started it all). Hannah works hard on the ranch and ends up saving the day with some quick thinking and skills she learned in all that cowgirl training. And yes, not only does she save the day, she goes on to start the wild west show of the title and becomes the "best cowgirl in the world".

The art is cartoony and sweet, with a soft, slightly sepia-tinted palette in the colors. (And, there is no sign of the dreaded over-used Giddy-Up font anywhere - bonus points!) And the story is fun and engaging -- a must-read for any aspiring cowhand and honestly, I think any kid would really enjoy it.

Check it out on Amazon; or find it at your local library!

Little Cowgirl Book Club: Cindy Ellen, A Wild Western Cinderella

Written by Susan Lowell and illustrating by Jane Manning, this is a really clever retelling of Cinderella -- I often find fairy tale interpretations too gimmicky, but this one read wonderfully. And the art is fantastic! The Little Cowgirl still enjoys picture books and she said she liked this one a lot. I did too. Cindy Ellen is the best cowgirl in the area, but her nasty stepmother and stepsisters don't let her do anything but the dirtiest chores around their ranch. It takes her fairy godmother to give her some gumption -- and then she doesn't just go to a square dance/ ball, she actually competes in a rodeo! (Pretty sure that was my kid's favorite part.) Good enough that I'd be interested in Lowell's other western fairy tale retellings -- although those books unfortunately are not illustrated by Jane Manning. I think the art is at least half the charm of this book, so I don't know if we'd like the others nearly so much.
 
Check it out on Amazon; or find it at your local library!

Little Cowgirl Book Club: Holding the Reins

The Little Cowgirl was especially interested in this book -- it follows the lives of 4 modern-day teenaged cowgirls throughout the year: KaDee of Utah & Colorado in summer; Sarah of Montana in fall; Katy of Wyoming in winter and Leslie of new Mexico in Spring. I found it a really fascinating book -- you can find plenty of books and blogs about real-life adults on ranches, but not too much on the younger set. Unfortunately, while it's marked as suitable for elementary school, it ended up being a bit too graphic for a 6-year-old. I think she was also a bit bored with the mundane details of high-school life. Definitely better for older kids, but an interesting read for anyone.

Check it out on Amazon; or find it at your local library!

Little Cowgirl Book Club: Yippee-Yay!

Okay, first off, I just have to get something off my chest here.

Dear World, can we please call for a moratorium on the use of Giddyup? I grant you, it's a pretty cute font, and when it came out almost ten years ago there weren't a lot of choices. But now it is everywhere. Everywhere. Seriously, it's like the comic sans of western fonts. Just. Stop. Thank you.

Okay, I feel better now. This is a pretty nicely done non-fiction picture book, mostly covering the history of the Old West. Lots of information on gear, clothing, cattle drives and so on, presented in a cartoony fashion. The Little Cowgirl didn't like it much though, because while it claims to be a book about cowboys and cowgirls, actually, the first page tells you that there were very few women on the frontier and only a handful of cowgirls, and then we get zero cowgirls until the last two pages of the book, which is the brief "modern times" section. I would still recommend it to any kid interested in the subject -- just as long as they're not a persnickety little cowgirl!

Check it out on Amazon; or find it at your local library!

Little Cowgirl Book Club: Ranch (a seek-and-find)

This is a pretty cute seek-and-find type book that takes place on all the different areas of a working (modern) ranch. Each page (or two-page spread) shows a section of the ranch (barn, cookhouse, etc), describes it briefly then gives you a long list of things to find. The depth of detail is impressive, and we had fun finding everything (3 chaps! 7 cowboy hats! 2 coyotes!) but we ran into a few problems - the biggest one being that the binding process obscured a few of the items we were supposed to be finding (too much glue -- about 3/4" was just gone from the center of one illustration) and the art style made a few things hard to identify. Luckily, the keys in the back let us figure out where the missing things were. Fun to go through once, but I don't know how many kids would want to read through it more than that. And definitely for the younger kids. Worth a library visit for sure, though!

Check it out on Amazon; or find it at your local library!

Little Cowgirl Book Club: Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa

This is a series of books (6 so far, I think?) for younger readers that we found at our library. Kate is a working cowgirl on her family's ranch -- which I thought was pretty cool. Her pony, Cocoa, is a bit difficult -- he basically doesn't want to work and likes to eat a lot. But she always convinces him to get back to the job of being a cowpony (he talks to her). Very cute books, but much too young for my little cowgirl. She enjoyed looking through them but was done in a few minutes. I would say they're great picture books for reading aloud, or for early readers to tackle, and for kids at those level she and I definitely recommend them.

Check it out at Amazon; or find it at your local library!