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You will LOVE Audrey (cow)!
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Audrey (Cow), by Canadian award-winning children’s author Dan Bar-El, is an entertaining children’s book that adults will want an excuse to read.

The first things you will notice about this book is its size, hard cover, and great illustrations. It’s built like a novel with large print, the illustrations by Tatyana Mai-Wyss are delightful – in colour on the jacket, black and white throughout the book – and its first recommendation is by Doris the deer. Yes, a deer. It is an unusual approach and carries the story all the way through.

It seems in real life there was a cow in Ohio that escaped the slaughterhouse in Ohio in 2002. Her experience inspired Dan Bar-El to write the story of Audrey (Cow).

Audrey enjoyed her life on the farm with her mother and many animal friends. The one thing she dreaded was the big truck that would arrive every so often onto which would be loaded a few select cows. They would never return. Everyone knew what happened. Her own mother was taken that way. Audrey was determined to not end up the same way when she was grown and set about to devise a plan of escape, enlisting the help of her animal friends.

Audrey (Cow) is an amusing story told from the viewpoints of the animal characters through interviews. Each has its own individual personality, opinion, and contribution to the escapade. There even are humans unwittingly used to help.

Audrey (Cow) reads like a mild thriller and is a great adventure story. It’s a safe read for children, holds one’s attention, and gives the reader a sense of satisfaction.

As I said, Audrey (Cow) is an entertaining children’s book that adults will want an excuse to read. No children to read it to? Never mind the excuse; read it anyway! ( )

A fun, quirky book with a heartfelt message, Audrey (Cow) tells the engaging and often humorous story of a great bovine escape inspired by a real event. A host of people, farm and forest animals make up the large cast of characters "interviewed" for this book which opens with a profile on Audrey who, as expected, is not your run-of-the mill cow.

Audrey composes poetry and dreams of traveling to France and most desperately, wants to escape her fate as people food. With the hilarious assistance of her farm friends and later, a host of woodland creatures who rise to the challenge of keeping a large white cow safe in the forest, Audrey gets her happy ending, though not in France.

Readers will delight in the animal antics, logically explained by the animals themselves and then hysterically reinterpreted by human witnesses. Despite the large cast, each voice and personality is distinctive and unique, and the author has kindly assisted by parenthetically including everyone's species. Recommended for fans of Charlotte's Web, Babe, or Flora and Ulysses. Also good for older elementary school readers looking for character-driven plots that are light-hearted and humorous. This was a highly enjoyable book that demonstrated the power of kindness, friendship and believing in one's dreams. Audrey may well make vegetarians of us all! AR 5.8, pts. 6.0 -JF ( )

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