Clancy the Courageous Cow

I bought this book on the recommendation of a coworker whose 4-year-old memorized it in one week. Now my nephews, 8 and 10, read it to their new baby brother, and they all love it, particularly the wrestling parts. It has got a nice message about sharing and prejudice, but I don't think that "clogs" the story up - and certainly my nephews don't, either!

Oh, excellent book. So cute. My 5-year-old and 2-year-old both loved it. It's a very sweet, gently moral "can't we all just get along" story, with simple illustrations. It would be a bit much for a beginning reader to read on their own, but it's perfect for reading aloud and a good length.

I purchased this for my daughter looking for stories about understanding and accepting differences and Clancy hit the spot. Not preachy, just plain common sense. I love this book!

Ignore the PRO reviewers that didn't speak highly of this book. The first two customer reviewers got it right. This book is FANTASTIC. I teach elementary school. This is my 19th year of doing so. I shared this book with our school librarian and she made it the first book of the new year that she ordered for our school! Diversity. Humor. Tolerance. It is great! I hope it becomes a CLASSIC along the lines of "The Giving Tree". I am so thankful that I stumbled acrossed it at my public library. My hope is that more libraries add it to their collections. I look forward to reading it to my students this year. And, to my three daughters.

There are relatively few titles out there on the market today that know how to correctly combine such seemingly disjointed elements as pro-wrestling, veal, and forgiveness in as satisfying a manner as is found in Lachie Hume's first book. The best picture books, to my mind, are the ones that balance sound writing with illustrations that complement the action in an exceedingly pleasing manner. But before all of that, you have to actually want to pick up the book. Now take a good hard look at the cover of "Clancy the Courageous Cow". Maybe I'm the only one, but it is damn difficult to resist a book where one cow is a mere half a second away from cheerily body-slamming one of his fellows. Inside the book you'll certainly find a standard different-can-be-good story, but it has just enough humor, wry watercolors, and self-awareness to please big and small fry alike. "Clancy was born on a stormy day, a day of great disappointment for his parents." Not too surprising when you think about it. Unlike all the other Belted Galloways in the herd, Clancy is born entirely black without the requisite white stripe about his middle. All his attempts to affix a fake white belt around his middle fail miserably, but there is at least one advantage to his hue. Across a nearby fence is the grass of the fat sleek Herefords. Each year the two herds wrestle for grazing rights on the land, and each year the better fed Herefords win. Clancy finds that in the dark he's invisible and even befriends a rare all-brown Hereford by the name of Helga, which makes him quite happy. All that food inevitably leads to Clancy growing quite large, and before you know it he's been nominated as the Belted Galloways' champion. In record time Clancy wins the contest, but rather than run off the other herd, he encourages everyone to stay and tear down the fence. They do, and to Helga and Clancy is born a beautiful multi-colored little calf by the name of Clanga. Due to the existence of "Barnyard", a CGI film where the cows have udders and male voices, I think I should mention right here and now Mr. Hume's Author's Note. In it he explains that he originally wrote this story as a 12-year-old, and his teacher took one point off of a perfect ten because Clancy, being male, was a bull and not a cow. "Clancy is technically a bull - but he'll always be a cow to me!" Consider this the litmus test for whether or not you'll enjoy this book. If the mere idea of calling udderless Clancy a bull is too much for your delicate sensibilities to handle, best to not pick up the title in the first place. If, on the other hand, you feel that the author's up front admission of the complication satisfies you, you're in for a treat. A native of Victoria, Australia, Mr. Hume's picture book sports a particularly British sensibility. Fans of "Wallace and Gromit", for example, may find much to love when it comes to Hume's low-key characterizations. These cows will sometimes look directly at the reader with a kind of