Synopsis
When a mysterious spacecraft lands in a nearby pasture, the lovable, blundering sheep get in gear for the ride of their lives! Unfortunately, these sheep don’t know the first thing about piloting a spaceship . . . but there may be someone else on board who does.
Children's Literature
Five run-of-the-mill farm sheep try their hands (or should I say hooves?) at space travel in this simple, silly, rhyming story. When a spaceship lands by their farm, the sheep decide to investigate, launching the spacecraft up and away toward outer space. Unfortunately, farm sheep know very little about flying a spaceship. Luckily, there is an alien sheep aboard that can help them land the ship back on Earth and find their homes. The short and simple rhymes that make up the text are cute and entertaining, but the illustrations really emphasize the importance of the "picture" side of picture books, and the pictures are what really tell the story. This could easily be a wordless book without losing any of the charm, though the rhyming words create a rhythm and tempo for the story that young children are sure to love. Try reading this book to children without the words first and find out what they think is happening before reading it traditionally in order to jumpstart their observation, reasoning, and inference skills. Reviewer: Carly Reagan