Starred review from March 15, 2016
That ol' rascal Cowpoke Clyde is back in the saddle again for another rollicking ride on the range (Cowpoke Clyde and Dirty Dawg, 2013), this time on one of them newfangled machines called a bicycle. The lanky, white cowboy decides to trade in his horse, ordering up a shiny, red bicycle from a mail-order catalog, or "cat-y-log" in Clyde's colloquial manner of speaking. The pitch-perfect rhyming text is filled with amusing, old-fashioned expressions in Clyde's strong cowboy voice, just begging to be read aloud with a believable twang. When Clyde takes off on his first ride, he's followed by his trusty, dusty Dawg, a faithful Old English sheepdog in a red bandanna. In subsequent action-filled scenes, they meet a "horny toad," a hare, a porcupine, and some bighorn sheep, which the devoted Dawg chases out of his path just in time. Thoughtful art direction sets up each new critter encounter with dramatic pacing and a page turn to reveal the next animal obstacle, with the new creature's name set in huge display type. Vibrant digitally produced illustrations give Clyde a distinct personality and meet the challenge of capturing a cowboy in motion on a bicycle, and close-up views of the prickly porcupine and bug-eyed bighorn sheep effectively animate the critters so they seem ready to jump right off the page. Another doggone funny cowboy caper chock full o' chuckles. (Picture book. 3-8)
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July 1, 2016
Cowpoke Clyde greets a newspaper advertisement for a bicycle with interest: "It wouldn't eat. It wouldn't stray. / It wouldn't buck or bite or neigh!" But his wobbliness on the vehicle leads to near misses with various animals. The book offers bouncy rhymes, comical illustrations of the rubber-faced protagonist in an Old West landscape, and a lesson in true grit.
(Copyright 2016 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)