How Now, Brown Cow?

by Alice Schertle, Amanda Schaffer (Illustrator)

Poems investigate the daily life of cows, imagine what a bull thinks, and report on what happened to the cow after she jumped over the moon

Genres: Poetry, Picture Books, Childrens

32 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1994

About the author

Alice Schertle has written more than 40 books, mostly for children. A mother and former elementary school teacher, Ms. Schertle is a graduate of the University of Southern California. Many of her most famous works are poetic in nature, though she writes about a wide variety of topics.

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

from _*A Cow Looks Down the Highway*_

Poor silly things
they never see
a thistle
or a bumblebee;
closed up inside
their shiny shells
they cannot know
how clover smells....

....(even numbered lines are supposed to be indented four spaces)

[Eunhye Yu]

I loved reading poems growing up, but one thing I never knew was that people could write separate poems and make them connect to make them a book out of it. How Now, Brown Cow? by Alice Schertle is one of the books that I found that made poems into a story. This book is basically talking about all different kinds of cows in how they live, act, and what they could do with the help of humans. Even though all these topics were are different and sometimes not about the same cow, it all connects somehow. I think one way I saw them connecting was by all the things the author talked about happened throughout one day. The way these poems worked was by making each page a poem and making the title of the poem big and it seemed like the poem’s own chapter for it’s topic.
This books was an okay book for me. When I think of poems I want them to have a rhyme scheme, but this book doesn’t have them as often as I thought they would appear. I would recommend this to teachers to help show students that poems don’t always have to rhyme even though they are poems. I think younger students would really enjoy this book because of what the author talks about in her poems. One poem in the book is titled “Driving Cows”. When younger students see that they would get a good kick out of it. One thing I really liked in the book were the pictures. If you read this book to younger students and they don’t understand, they would be able to understand the things that were read through the pictures. The author did a very good job making the pictures “readable” in a way that pictures could be read, which definitely made me to go back to the pictures a second time.

[Mari McR · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely illustrations and poems that praise all things beautiful and mesmerizing about cows lowing on their fields of buttercups.

[Emerson School Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

What better to pair with a visit from a real live cow than some poetry! The illustrations here go nicely with the short poems, generally illustrating the puns or wordplay where they might otherwise pass over students' heads. If you're looking for a nice collection of cow poems, this may be a good match for you.

[Caitlin Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

How Now, Brown Cow? by Alice Schertle is a collection of poems about cows. The illustrations are very pretty and look like oil paintings. Each page has a different poem about cows. This would be a good book to use over a few weeks in a classroom and you could read one of the poems every day. There is a lot of alliteration in some of the poems, which would be great for speech therapy.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down, best book I ever read. Lots of insight into social and gender roles.

[Teri · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read, "Drivin' The Cows". It's a short poem, about a cattle drive. Not my favorite.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute enough. I got a few good ones to read to the kids at school Friday.

[Amber · Rating 2 out of 5]

fun pictures, simple poems, Meghan likes "Cows Live Here" (cow poop poem), I like "Taradiddle" (cow that jumped over the moon, dreaming).

[Sonia Allison]

8

[Kathleen Lance]

This story is a collection about cows, bulls, calves, farmers, ect. Each page taught the reader a little bit about several different topics related to cows: their walk to feed, their walk back home, sleeping under the trees, the cow patties, etc.

I personally loved this book! I related really well to this book because my family actually has a cattle farm here in Arkansas. The illustrator did an outstanding job creating each page full of color and with beautiful strokes.

I think this book would be great to share with the class because the teacher could have the students do a poetry assignment afterwards. I think this book is a good example of poetry because it is easy to understand, it has some rhyme, and it relates well to many students.