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Summary
Summary
In Kate Hoefler's realistic and poetic picture book debut about the wide open West, the myth of rowdy, rough-riding cowboys and cowgirls is remade. A timely and multifaceted portrayal reveals a lifestyle that is as diverse as it contrary to what we've come to expect.
Author Notes
Kate Hoefler received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Michigan, where she studied as a Colby fellow. This is her debut picture book.
Jonathan Bean has illustrated many picture books and won his second Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Building Our House . He lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Visit his website at www.jonathanbean.com .
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3-Hoefler takes readers into the daily lives of cowboys. Almost every page turn reveals a different personality trait or behavior, from being "quiet in the morning, careful not to wake the people in the hollow" to being "strong, and tough, and homesick at the same time." Her portrayal shows skilled and sensitive caretakers who sing to calm the cattle or help them sleep. Always alert to danger and environmental cues, they communicate with other cowhands and their dogs to try to keep their herds safe and to prevent stampedes. When they lose an animal, "real cowboys cry." Bean employs stylized, hand-stenciled shapes in muted, digitally composed scenes. Various shades of brown, depicting the cattle, soil, and other elements, are worked (along with white) into a controlled palette of turquoise, mustard yellow, and orange-red; these colors appear individually or in combination. The moods range from tense-when a dust storm pelts the fleeing animals-to cheerful, when, in a red-and-white Escher-like cattle crossing, an aspiring cowboy waves from the backseat of a car. The language is lyrical, with one or two sentences per page describing the patience and consideration exhibited by these professionals, who "are as many different colors as the earth" and "are girls, too." VERDICT This subtle, expressionistic view may not hold the attention of children who prefer realistic art or constant action, but it provides a fresh, multidimensional glimpse at those who make their home on the range.-Wendy Lukehart, District of Columbia Public Library © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Writing in prose with the lilt and plainspoken poetry of a classic cowboy song, debut author Hoefler makes a winning case that those who are home on the range are self-aware, empathic, conscientious, "as many different colors as the earth," and include "girls, too." Hoefler's text seamlessly blends the workaday with a sense of wonder. "Real cowboys are good listeners," she writes in one such passage. "They're always listening to their trail boss and to the other cowhands. Sometimes they listen for trucks, and wolves, and rushing water. And sometimes they just listen to the big wide world and its grass song." Bean (This Is My Home, This Is My School) beautifully echoes the allusive, musical quality of the text while nodding to the archetypes of the Old West. Working in layers of stenciled four-color imagery, he portrays steers mottled like fine marble, the blinding fury of a dust storm, and an endless night sky of sparkling stars. It may well persuade readers to trade their ninja outfits for chaps, bandanas, and 10-gallon hats. Ages 4-7. Illustrator's agent: Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
There's not a howdy to be heard in this hymn to contemporary cowboys, providing a nice contrast to the many jokey books about them. A sentence beginning "real cowboys" introduces each new task or scene ("Real cowboys are safe. They pull their hats low because the sun can burn, and wear chaps so the cacti and brush don't cut them"), and a fair number of life lessons are thus introduced ("Real cowboys are patient" "Real cowboys take turns" "Real cowboys want peace") and saved from smarminess by their concrete grounding in real cowboy tasks. Young cowpokes will appreciate the seriousness given to their passion, an apparent respect shared by Bean's dramatic illustrations, "hand-stenciled shapes and textures layered with the computer and printed in four Pantone colors." With details that verge on the abstract, each page-turn comes as a visual surprise, moving, say, from a double-page spread of a cowboy herding cattle across a highway to a tender close-up of a cowboy rescuing a calf tangled in cacti. A three-spread sequence of a dust storm and stampede is ferociously exciting but ends with a lament for thus-lost cattle and dogs: "Real cowboys cry." The book ends with an existential turn entirely in keeping with the ongoing atmosphere, but those musings about life after death might be lost on young ranch hands. roger sutton(c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
An eloquent response to anyone with a simplistic picture of the cowboy as a rough, tough working man and nothing else.Rough, tough, and hardworking they definitely arebut so much more besides: Their work is to think of others, writes Hoefler, from neighbors to the calf stranded on the ridge. They are gentle, to keep the cattle calm. They know how to listen and to stay safe, and even on a fast horse they move with the slow rhythm of a herd. They suffer losses and, echoing the revelation about pirates in Mem Foxs classic, stereotype-busting Tough Boris, illustrated by Kathryn Brown (1994), Real cowboys cry. They take turns, they make art, they dream. More cosmically, they wonder whats past the horizon. And when their work is done, the author concludes, they find out. In contrast to his typically bright, cleanly drawn style, Bean illustrates this cowboy paean in a digital stenciling technique that leaves low-contrast layers of shapessome of these too indistinct to resolve easily. Moreover, though his figures properly diversify when he comes to the text Real cowboys are as many different colors as the earth. Real cowboys are girls, too, he rather misses the point by depicting all the cowboys on the other pages, so far as can be told, as generically light-skinned and apparently male. A positively inspirational unpacking of a traditional role model, hobbled but not entirely unhorsed by its illustrations. (Picture book. 6-9) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Using beautifully rendered, atmospheric scenes of the rugged world of cowboys on a cattle drive, this lyrical picture book declares that individuals need to be gentle and caring to be effective at what they do. Illustrations showing inclement weather, lost strays, and stampedes demonstrate that cowboys must be brave and strong and that they need to be patient, good listeners and to think of others. The cowboys shown here cry, come in different colors, and are sometimes cowgirls. The stylized, hand-stenciled, textured shapes are more fanciful than informational, but the two-page spreads of the open landscapes are breathtaking. Though extensive cattle drives ended long ago, a digital clock and automobile are pictured, placing this wild-west lullaby in a more modern setting. This is not for those wanting to explore the world of cowboys but is a lovely, quiet book about the personality traits that come in handy when the going gets tough.--Enos, Randall Copyright 2016 Booklist
