Customer Reviews

An Occasional Cow

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An Occasional Cow tells the story of Imogene, who lives in New York City but spends all her summers at camp. When her usual camp burns down, though, her parents are desperate to find a place to send her. Aunt Bobo's farm in Iowa is their answer.

In Iowa, Imogene meets her cousins: Josephine, March, Annie Mae, and Nathan. At first, there's some minor clashes between Josephine and Imogene, as the girls are quite similar. As the summer progresses, the group becomes fast friends and shares adventures. They spy on their neighbors, climb the laundry shute, and struggle to train their pigs to curtsey so they can win the annual pig talent show.

An Occasional Cow is light, pleasant fare. There isn't much plot, and what there is is far from compelling, but some of the characters are engaging, and the narrative moves swiftly. There are also touches of humor. Horvath often appears, in this book and in others, to be paying homage to Edward Eager's writing style (there are phrases in all of her books that are more or less direct quotes from Eager's work), so perhaps it isn't too surprising that Cow reads like an Eager book with the magic replaced by more mundane activities.

The book's most serious flaw is its lack of any conflict. Horvath tries, and then discards, one conflict after another, but she just doesn't seem to be comfortable having any of her characters struggle or fight. For example, Imogene doesn't like being sent to camp - she'd prefer to stay in New York - and she hates the idea of going to Iowa. With a set up like that, it seems likely that the story will feature either Imogene's attempts to teach her parents to let her stay home, or Imogene's gradual conversion to loving her summers away. In fact, neither thing happens, because by the end of the second chapter, Imogene is entirely happy and settled into the country, without having changed her general attitude towards her summers at all. The remainder of the conflicts are handled precisely the same way - they show up briefly and are fixed within 15 pages.

All in all, this book is a nice diversion, nothing more, but it might be pleasant for young readers who enjoy light and cheerful stories.

This book was very exiting and adventurious. We liked it because it wasn't to long. We also liked it because there was this lady named "the pistachio women" and she hated flying on airplanes. It seemed like it would be a small childs book, but it was really for a 4th grade level. This book made me laugh and I really liked it.

Occasional Cow is about this girl named Imogene. She always goes to camp but this year she can't, so she has to go to her aunt Bobo's house in Iowa. She has a hard time fitting in at first and then she gets to know them and starts playing with her cousins. She spies on their neighbor with them, with her new sunglasses. She is making the worlds longest gum wrapper chain. Her best friend is Eddie. I think you will like this book. I sure did.

This book was very good because it told about Imogene Spark and what she did every summer. But this summer her camp burned down and she could not return to her usual summer. Her best friend Edie Finkelstein always goes to camp with her. This summer Edie's parents wanted her to go to a different camp. Imogene's mother called her cousin Bobo, told her the story of the burned camp. Bobo said that she could come to Iowa where they live on a farm. In Iowa, Imogene met her cousins, Josephine, Annie Mae, March, and Nathan, who thought he was a dog. They did a lot of fun things, including, teaching the pigs to curtsy, spied on their neighbors with their sunglasses, entering her gum wrapper chain in the odd contest. Imogene and the others won first prize. At first Imogene thought that she should win first prize alone, she decided to share it with them because they had helped. I enjoyed this book because it was different than normal life, like teaching the pigs to curtsy. Because it was funny and sometimes made me laugh. I would recommend this book if you want to read a good and short book.