Clancy the Courageous Cow [Hardcover]

Lachie Hume (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 1 and up

The Belted Galloways are trapped in a vicious cycle. Every year their bossy neighbors, the Herefords, win the Cow Wrestling Contest. The winners get to graze on the best pasture. The losers have to wait till next year.

Can a beltless Belted Galloway do anything about their plight? He can if his name is Clancy.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Australian newcomer Hume's wry naïve illustrations buoy this somewhat clunky story about a misfit cow, in which the explicit message about the importance of diversity overshadows the comedy. Clancy the cow is a "great disappointment for his parents. You see, they belonged to a herd of Belted Galloways, but Clancy had no belt. He was beltless." (Belted Galloways are black with a white band around the middle.) Clancy grows strong by slipping through the fence at night into the Herefords' lush field to graze (without a stripe, "he was invisible in the dark!"), and a Romeo and Juliet subplot emerges in which Clancy falls in love with a "totally brown" Hereford named Helga ("Like Clancy, Helga had always been picked on because she was different"). In the pasture war between the herds, the Herefords have the upper hoof until Clancy wins the wrestling match and proclaims, "I say we pull down the fence and be cows together." Hume's illustrations of the cartoon cows are often amusing. As an outcast, Clancy tries various silly remedies: he paints on a white stripe, sprinkles on white sugar and even rolls in the snow. When Clancy is being trained to fight by some experienced wrestlers, the spread features different cow-appropriate wrestling holds (the Cud Cruncher, the Helicowpter, the Ruminator, etc.). These comic touches leaven the rather heavy-handed message. All ages. (Mar.)
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From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 1—Clancy is a Belted Galloway born beltless. Teased by the others, he tries various methods of blending in, but all fail. The Belted Galloway community itself is the victim of a harsh fate; each year they miss out on the grazing rights to the rich grass because they cannot defeat the Herefords in the annual cow-wrestling competition. When Clancy realizes that, under the protection of his all-black hide, he can sneak into the Herefords' field at night, he grazes and becomes stronger. More importantly, he befriends Helga, an all-brown Hereford. She, too, has known the sting of rejection. When Clancy finally defeats a Hereford, and the Belted Galloways prepare to take over the rich grazing field, Clancy and Helga call for an end to the discrimination. "I say we pull down the fence and be cows together." And they all lived happily ever after. From Margaret Rey's Spotty to Dumbo to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, children have heard this "being different is okay" theme many times before. The illustrations, done in watercolor and graphite pencil, are amusing at times-the spread on cow wrestling maneuvers is a good example—but, over all, this is a force-fed message book.—Kara Schaff Dean, Needham Public Library, MA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 1 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Greenwillow Books (March 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061172499
• ISBN-13: 978-0061172496
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,372,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Here he comes to save the day!, March 13, 2007

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Clancy the Courageous Cow (Hardcover)

There are relatively few titles out there on the market today that know how to correctly combine such seemingly disjointed elements as pro-wrestling, veal, and forgiveness in as satisfying a manner as is found in Lachie Hume's first book. The best picture books, to my mind, are the ones that balance sound writing with illustrations that complement the action in an exceedingly pleasing manner. But before all of that, you have to actually want to pick up the book. Now take a good hard look at the cover of "Clancy the Courageous Cow". Maybe I'm the only one, but it is damn difficult to resist a book where one cow is a mere half a second away from cheerily body-slamming one of his fellows. Inside the book you'll certainly find a standard different-can-be-good story, but it has just enough humor, wry watercolors, and self-awareness to please big and small fry alike.

"Clancy was born on a stormy day, a day of great disappointment for his parents." Not too surprising when you think about it. Unlike all the other Belted Galloways in the herd, Clancy is born entirely black without the requisite white stripe about his middle. All his attempts to affix a fake white belt around his middle fail miserably, but there is at least one advantage to his hue. Across a nearby fence is the grass of the fat sleek Herefords. Each year the two herds wrestle for grazing rights on the land, and each year the better fed Herefords win. Clancy finds that in the dark he's invisible and even befriends a rare all-brown Hereford by the name of Helga, which makes him quite happy. All that food inevitably leads to Clancy growing quite large, and before you know it he's been nominated as the Belted Galloways' champion. In record time Clancy wins the contest, but rather than run off the other herd, he encourages everyone to stay and tear down the fence. They do, and to Helga and Clancy is born a beautiful multi-colored little calf by the name of Clanga.

Due to the existence of "Barnyard", a CGI film where the cows have udders and male voices, I think I should mention right here and now Mr. Hume's Author's Note. In it he explains that he originally wrote this story as a 12-year-old, and his teacher took one point off of a perfect ten because Clancy, being male, was a bull and not a cow. "Clancy is technically a bull - but he'll always be a cow to me!" Consider this the litmus test for whether or not you'll enjoy this book. If the mere idea of calling udderless Clancy a bull is too much for your delicate sensibilities to handle, best to not pick up the title in the first place. If, on the other hand, you feel that the author's up front admission of the complication satisfies you, you're in for a treat.

A native of Victoria, Australia, Mr. Hume's picture book sports a particularly British sensibility. Fans of "Wallace and Gromit", for example, may find much to love when it comes to Hume's low-key characterizations. These cows will sometimes look directly at the reader with a kind of benign resignation not often found in books from the States. As an artist, Mr. Hume's images don't appear particularly complex at the start. No cow in this book has a visible mouth, for example (though they are often seen munching on grass). For all that, Hume uses his watercolors to their best advantage. I was quite taken with his softly melting pink/purple skies, distinctive night scenes, and variegated grasslands. Hume isn't afraid of speech bubbles either, using them only when they best fit one occasion or another (the cover is a good example of this). The simplicity of the drawings do sometimes make it difficult to tell what emotions a character might be feeling at any given time. Without a mouth or expressive eyes, the story has to rely on the narration to convey things like Helga and Clancy's delight over their new little daughter. Eyebrows, perhaps, would not have been amiss.

Knowing the tender worried hearts of certain parents, I suspect that one or two may find themselves perturbed at Clancy's duplicity. After all, the only reason he wins the wrestling contest (aside from practicing the moves) is that he's sneaking onto the Herefords' fields and eating their grass. Some small children, with their acute sense of right and wrong, may also wonder why it's okay for Clancy to bend the rules in this manner. The book makes it very clear, however, that the Belted Galloways are trapped in a vicious, and deeply unfair, circle. Clancy's actions are a rebellion against an unfair system. He's a disenfranchised rebel who's fighting "the man" and giving power back to the people. Maybe your four-year-old won't see it that way, but it's all in how you look at it.

And then there's the story's moral core. Rejected by his own society, Clancy understands why it's important to accept people who are different than you. Therefore his cry at the end that everyone should share the good grass isn't completely out of the blue. On top of that, Helga is the only cow who's ever really accepted him. All the more reason he'd see that the Herefords aren't that different. So let's see... we're looking at a book that discusses a nasty situation between creatures of different groups that fight until they reach a final peace when one group forgives the other rather than wreaking revenge. Best of all, it isn't preachy in the least. If your kids happen to learn something from this, it may be partly because the moral isn't being forcibly shoved down their gullets.

Come to think of it, this wouldn't be a bad book at all to hand to people who are looking for picture books on multi-ethnic families. After all, the last image in the book is of Clanga (a clever mixing of the names Clancy and Helga) in all her many-colored glory alongside the sentence, "Clanga was born on a sunny day, a day of great joy for her parents." With its charming illustrations, easy-going narration, and thoughtful plotting, we can only hope that Lachie Hume feels inclined to keep on bringing us picture books with this level of charm and talent to them. Recommended indeed.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Such a happy story!, December 26, 2007

By 

Lynne Homeyer - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Clancy the Courageous Cow (Hardcover)

I bought this book on the recommendation of a coworker whose 4-year-old memorized it in one week. Now my nephews, 8 and 10, read it to their new baby brother, and they all love it, particularly the wrestling parts. It has got a nice message about sharing and prejudice, but I don't think that "clogs" the story up - and certainly my nephews don't, either!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great and FUN!, August 12, 2007

By 

Dean Welsh "Reading Rocks!" (The Land of Oz) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Clancy the Courageous Cow (Hardcover)

Ignore the PRO reviewers that didn't speak highly of this book. The first two customer reviewers got it right. This book is FANTASTIC. I teach elementary school. This is my 19th year of doing so. I shared this book with our school librarian and she made it the first book of the new year that she ordered for our school! Diversity. Humor. Tolerance. It is great! I hope it becomes a CLASSIC along the lines of "The Giving Tree". I am so thankful that I stumbled acrossed it at my public library. My hope is that more libraries add it to their collections. I look forward to reading it to my students this year. And, to my three daughters.