Animal Books: Farmyard Sounds

Since moving to Prairie Elms, Tirzah Mae has been enamored with our neighbors’ animals. First it was the dogs (Woof, woof!) belonging to our neighbor to the south. Then it was the chickens (Cluck, cluck!) belonging to our neighbor to the north.

Not one to waste an opportunity to check books out of the library, I rushed off to find as many farm animal books as I could – a great many of which were centered around the sounds farm animals make.

Tirzah Mae chases the chickens

This is a record of what we read, and what we thought of what we read, ordered from favorite to least favorite (give or take.)

Does a Cow Say Boo? by Judy Hindley
Tirzah Mae didn’t really know her animal sounds yet, so I figured the silliness of this book – asking if a variety of farmyard animals say “Boo” – would be over her head. Just goes to show that mama ISN’T always right. While she may not know ALL the animals sounds, she DOES know that neither a cow nor a pigeon nor a goat says “Boo”. The rollicking rhyme scheme and continued questioning is just exactly what it takes to keep Tirzah Mae engaged for the entire book. And when we get to the end, when Tirzah Mae covers her face with her hands and lets out her own “Boo!”? It’s perfect. We highly recommend this book!

This Little Chick by John Lawrence
A little chick goes to visit a variety of different animals – and what do they hear her say? Not “cheep, cheep” as I might have expected. Instead, she speaks to each group of animals in their own language. But when she gets home to her mama at night, she’s full of all sorts of cheeps and oinks and quacks and moos – telling her mama all about her day. I thought this book was just darling.

Barnyard Banter by Denise Fleming
This one isn’t entirely animal sounds, since it includes “Pigs in the wallow. Muck, muck, muck.” – but it’s no less delightful for the occasional non-sound inclusion. The text follows the basic formula seen above (“[Animal] in the [location]. [Sound], [sound], [sound].”) with rhyming pairs of sounds (“muck” rhymed with “cluck”). Fleming’s illustrations are handmade paper poured into molds in the shapes of the animals (I want to try that!) Children will enjoy finding the goose hidden in each double-page spread.

All Kinds of Kisses by Nancy Tafuri
In this board book, a selection of baby animals feel that their mothers’ kisses are the best: “Little Piglet loves Oink kisses. Little Lamb loves Baaa kisses.” Not all the animals are farmyard animals, but most of the farmyard ones are represented. This is also a good book for learning the names of the “baby versions” of animals – ducklings, chicks, kids, etc. In a day and age where cartoonish illustrations are all the rage, the more careful but not quite photo-realistic illustrations are a real plus for me.

Honk, Honk! Baa, Baa! by Petr Horacek
A board book with very simple text beginning with “Hee-Haw, Hee-Haw says the donkey.” Each physical page of the book is shorter than the one before, and the left-hand side of each spread ends up forming the figure of a cow on the very last page. It’s a clever little illustrative technique, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Bob by Tracey Campbell Pearson
Bob, the rooster, only clucks until the coop cat (since when does a chicken coop have a cat?) informs him that he needs to learn how to crow so he can wake the girls up in the morning. Bob sets out to find another rooster to teach him to crow, but finds plenty of other animals along the way, each of whom teach him their own sounds. The additional sounds come in handy when a fox tries to get into the henhouse! I’d really like to like this story. The plot is fun, as are the illustrations. But I have a very hard time getting over the initial technical error: Pearson has the cat tell Bob that he isn’t a chicken, he’s a rooster – which is why he should crow instead of cluck. Did you catch that? Roosters are chickens. A male chicken is a rooster, a female chicken a hen. Bob oughtn’t cluck like a hen. I rather hate that this is a deal-breaker for me, but it is.

Pete the Cat: Old MacDonald Had a Farm by James Dean
The lyrics to “Old MacDonald had a Farm”, sung by Pete the Cat himself (apparently he’s a thing?) Complete with really hokey illustrations. I’ll pass.

Everywhere a Moo, Moo, a Scholastic “Rookie Toddler” book
Abbreviated lyrics to “Old MacDonald had a Farm” (sans the “E-I-E-I-O” and the titular preamble) superimposed over photographs of various farm animals. Except that the farm animals are photoshopped onto the same unrealistically green field below the same generic sky with an equally photoshopped barn or farmhouse on the horizon. This could have been a book with really nice photos of animals IN THEIR ENVIRONMENT, but it isn’t.

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