Overview
Black-and-white Holstein cows dot Vermont’s landscape: a visual feast of valleys and lakes dissected by the lush Green Mountains. Vermont has the highest ratio of cows to people of any state in our country: one cow for every four people who live there.
Woody Jackson has lived there for more than twenty-five years. He has watched the seasons pass from glorious autumn foliage, to winter’s many months of cold and snow, to muddy spring, to the green, green Vermont summertime. Always present are the cows.
This beautiful alphabet book will appeal to adults and young children alike.
Objects that make up life on a farm are depicted from A to Z.
Synopsis
Black-and-white Holstein cows dot Vermont’s landscape: a visual feast of valleys and lakes dissected by the lush Green Mountains. Vermont has the highest ratio of cows to people of any state in our country: one cow for every four people who live there.
Woody Jackson has lived there for more than twenty-five years. He has watched the seasons pass from glorious autumn foliage, to winter’s many months of cold and snow, to muddy spring, to the green, green Vermont summertime. Always present are the cows.
This beautiful alphabet book will appeal to adults and young children alike.
Publishers Weekly
Jackson transports his audience to Vermont with this simple alphabet book that, according to an endnote, celebrates the beauty of "the dairy farms in the Champlain Valley." A white border on each page contains a square watercolor painting that incorporates the artist's signature Holsteins (made famous by the Ben & Jerry ice cream cartons and trucks). Below each painting, a word introduces a letter of the alphabet: the first letter is enlarged and painted a solid color, the remaining letters appear in a unified black typeface. Each image captures a quiet moment of farm life: two cows walk past a field of "Corn"; a cow on a snow-covered field gazes at "Icicles"; white ducks swim by a grazing herd ("Quack"). Jackson's paintings have an impressionistic quality: in "Jerseys," for instance, golden-hued cows in the foreground appear against a band of green, black-and-white Holsteins stand behind them on a dusty-blue band, while ribbons of sunset colors (yellow, red, purple) rise up the page, culminating in an ocean-blue sky. Each painting stands alone as a remarkable work of art; together they create a visual ode to the beauty of the Vermont landscape. A magnificent addition to the alphabet book genre and a fitting tribute to a vanishing lifestyle. All ages. (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Jackson transports his audience to Vermont with this simple alphabet book that, according to an endnote, celebrates the beauty of "the dairy farms in the Champlain Valley." A white border on each page contains a square watercolor painting that incorporates the artist's signature Holsteins (made famous by the Ben & Jerry ice cream cartons and trucks). Below each painting, a word introduces a letter of the alphabet: the first letter is enlarged and painted a solid color, the remaining letters appear in a unified black typeface. Each image captures a quiet moment of farm life: two cows walk past a field of "Corn"; a cow on a snow-covered field gazes at "Icicles"; white ducks swim by a grazing herd ("Quack"). Jackson's paintings have an impressionistic quality: in "Jerseys," for instance, golden-hued cows in the foreground appear against a band of green, black-and-white Holsteins stand behind them on a dusty-blue band, while ribbons of sunset colors (yellow, red, purple) rise up the page, culminating in an ocean-blue sky. Each painting stands alone as a remarkable work of art; together they create a visual ode to the beauty of the Vermont landscape. A magnificent addition to the alphabet book genre and a fitting tribute to a vanishing lifestyle. All ages. (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.Children's Literature
The author-illustrator captures in peaceful, pleasing paintings the idyllic view of life on a dairy farm in rural Vermont. He is the creator of the cows seen on Ben and Jerry ice cream cartons and trucks and every picture illustrating this alphabet book contains one or more of the bovine creatures. From A to Z, or from alfalfa to zucchini, each page has a connection to the author's vision of the farm. This is an interesting idea and the paintings add much to the book, but a couple of the words are problematical. Most of the one-word examples of the letters are simple, concrete nouns such as "barn" or "dog" so it might be confusing to the child of an age to be learning his letters to come upon a word like "Xanadu." "Xanadu" is an interesting description of how an adult might view a tranquil farm scene and older readers would also understand the word "Jerseys" placed beneath a drawing of cows, but most toddlers would not. Nonetheless, the charming paintings have a soothing quality making this book worthwhile for kids. 2003, Houghton Mifflin, Ages 3 to 6.—Carolyn Mott Ford