In The Cow's Backyard

Week 7 Picture Book 3
In the Cow's Backyard
Written By: Alma Flor Ada
Illustrated by: Vivi Escriva
Published: 1996

I appreciated this book much more after I read the author's rationale behind writing it. The first time I read it, it appeared to be just another silly beginning reader book. There was a lot of repetition and very little content. The story is simple. It starts off with an ant hanging out in a cow's backyard. The ant is laying on a hammock, enjoying the shade on a nice day. The ant is visited by many of it's friends and they all decide to hang out on the hammock together, because there is always room for one more friend. In the end, they think that there is no way to fit one more friend, but the animals find a way for everybody to enjoy the hammock together. 

Ada wrote this book, taking inspiration from her family's Thanksgiving gatherings. She says she has a very big family, but many of their friends liked to join them. Even though their table was crowded, her family could not imagine having the holiday meal without each one of those people so they found a way to make everybody fit. Alma Flor Ada uses a lot of strategies that support beginning readers in their development of strong reading skills. She uses a lot of repetition and animal noises to help students make sense of the story. The illustrations are simple and bright, making comprehension through pictures fun and easy.

Since I hope to be teaching in an upper elementary classroom, this book probably will not be in my library. If I were to be teaching a younger grade, I definitely would want this in a big book format. That way the students would be able to follow along and make connections between the text they are seeing and the animals on the page. I give this book three stars.