The Cow Said Neigh! A Farm Story by Rory Feek, Illustrated by Bruno Robert

The Cow Said Neigh! A Farm Story by Rory Feek, Illustrated by Bruno Robert is a short, easy to read children's picture book with adorable illustrations. The story tells the tale of animals on the farm, each that envies something that another animal has or does, in a "grass is always greener" type way. In response, the animal makes the sound of the animal it envies, and then the next spread shows the envied animal envying a different animal. It begins with a neighing cow, as the title suggests, jealous of the way that the horse runs openly while the cow is in the barn. The un-matched animal sounds rhyme with part of the stanza that describes why they wish they were a different animal. The chain ends with a cat wishing it was the farmer and the farmer being quite startled at hearing a cat say, "hello." Going to the barn, he quickly hears that the cat isn't the only animal making unusual sounds. Though at first perplexed, ultimately the farmer decides the only logical thing to do is play along, ending the book with a "moo!"

The illustrations are very well done, In what looks like colored pencil style shadings. The expressions of the animals is the best part--they are so enthusiastic in making their new animal sound that they close their eyes and open their mouth wide to belt it out. Meanwhile the animal who traditionally makes that call is looking on with interest, curiosity, and maybe even a little concern. The animal sounds are big colorful block text that makes it pop-off the page.

This book features a dedication page at the beginning for gifting the book.

Overall, I think it's a nice shake-up of children's books that teach animal sounds and would probably be quite surprising and funny for children to read/have read to them.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher but was not required to post a positive review.