G Is for Goat

My goat-loving 2 year old loves this book. Which is great for Mom and Dad, since we were reallllly sick of reading The Three Billy Goats Gruff every night! Now we have another goat book to choose from, thank goodness.

I LOVE this book, and so does my son (about 18 mo when we got it, now he's 2). I might be partial because I grew up on a farm and think goats are fun, but the illustrations are teriffic, the story is simple but interesting, and the goats do a few characteristically funny goat things. It's fun to watch little kid's faces when they begin to understand the humor (like when the goats start to nibble one girl's clothing at feeding time). I like it so much I bought another for my sister's daughter. (But I made sure to get the board book this time--accidentally ordered the paperback myself--oops!).

G is for Goat is such a neat board book for young children. Lots of learning is going on while they get acquainted with Patricia Polacco and her beautiful pictures.

Popular children's book author and illustrator Patricia Polacco's love for the goats with whom she shares her Michigan farm is evident on the funny, sunny pages of this rhyming alphabet book. Beginning with "A is for apple, the best treat of all. B is for Billy, what boy goats are called," and concluding with "Z...amaZing! Three babies came...Zig, Zag and Zoe will be their names," young readers are treated to vivid descriptions of what goats look like, what they're fond of doing, and their favorite foods. Polacco's trademark bold watercolor illustrations of the animals and babushka wearing girls are eye-catching and whimsical. - Gail Cooke

I have now raised Nubian dairy goats for half of my forty-eight years. For most of that time I've resided in a small community across the country from where I was, myself, born and raised. I was enticed to move to Sebastopol, California--sight unseen--by Steven Schack, a late friend who was important in the goat dairying industry and who had adopted the community as his own while attending college nearby. I was motivated to seek out my little hillside spot in the country by the necessity of having a decent field in which to pasture my goats. "The farm" is now, in fact, the place where I have spent the largest chunk of my life. Just as Steven convinced me to come, he also persuaded a number of well-known people in the goat industry to move here too. Shari and I even get to teach some of their children. Thus, even though I only keep a modest herd these days, and even though my days of traveling eight or ten hours each way (through the night) to goat shows are many years behind me, I owe so much of whom I've become to having fallen in love back in the late 1970s with a little speckled goat kid, that I named Joyce (after a local politician). I have thousands of memories involving goats and friends with goats. Births and deaths. Backbreaking work rebuilding barns and erecting fences. The smelly, tedious work of shoveling out barns. The hot, sweaty job of shearing them for the show ring. Being handed a blue ribbon at a National Show. Lounging around outside with the does as they nudge me to be scratched, or tug at my hair to elicit my reaction. Watching the young kids hopping around in the tall grass like popcorn. Raising our children on the milk my goats produce. Over my many years of involvement with children's picture books, I have always been delighted by the Nubian dairy goats that appear in many of Patricia Polacco's books. It has always been clear to me that Patricia has spent much time with the goats. Her goats' expressions are consistently reminiscent of ones I see in my own barn. When Patricia captures a goat they usually have ears that flop wildly and hooves that kick up ever so true to life. G IS FOR GOAT is Patricia's celebration of goatkeeping. It will be a dangerous book in the hands of any persuasive youngster whose parents have enough room in the backyard for a family pet or a 4H project. Remember that Judith Viorst poem about Mother not wanting a dog? Well, there are going to be a bunch of mommies and daddies who are going to end up with a couple of Nubian does--like it or not--thanks to the joyfulness and appeal of this bouncy alphabet-of-goats book. Eating flowers, pulling carts, giving birth, climbing on things. Such is the life of goats. An adorable introduction to one of the best friends you may ever have, my copy of G IS FOR GOATS is leaving here today with the pair of Nubian kids who I've just sold to a young couple and their preschool daughter. And if you're ever around Sebastopol, you can stop by and chew a little cud with Be