Take me home to the place I belong (or anywhere else that avoids this particular country road).
THREE PROS
*If you want your kids to really understand what it's like to be a farmer without all of the halcyonic bull, then choose this title because it doesn't shy away from anything (that's assuming you're cool with images of industrial milking and inoculation)
*The farm glossary in the back is very detailed and does a great job defining everything in the book (but if you don't know it's there on the first read-through it doesn't much help now does it?)
*Holy crap - this guy thanked seventy (70!) separate people in his acknowledgments -- that has to be some kind of record
*Holy crap - this guy thanked seventy (70!) separate people in his acknowledgments -- that has to be some kind of record
THREE CONS
*Try explaining any of the following items to your toddler completely out of the blue: ammonia fertilizer, disking, grinding feed, oat delivery, or the concepts of latitude and longitude down to the seconds
*Lost the intended audience early on by mentioning candy on the third letter of the alphabet and then failing to make the picture obviously show some sort of sweets
*Lost the intended audience early on by mentioning candy on the third letter of the alphabet and then failing to make the picture obviously show some sort of sweets
*That transition from X to Y sounds plain stupid when read aloud (and I was actually disappointed that the author didn't just leave X out altogether since he made a very pointed mention of that letter in the foreword)
ONE DAD'S OPINION
This one was extremely tough for me to rate because I could truly see both sides of the argument. Should I give it credit for its uniqueness and the way it exposes kids to things no other alphabet book would ever even think of touching? Or should I ding it for being so strange and unrelatable for almost every kid from the city or suburbs that would ever think of opening it. In the end, I just had to give it a Donate for one simple reason: I honestly think this might be the first time my son laughed at something. You know, like in a "what the 'f' is this?" kid of way. Obviously, I couldn't have been prouder of him than I was at that moment. Unfortunately for author Arthur Geisert, that doesn't bode well for his Country Road ABC.
Buy / Borrow / DONATE / Destroy
ONE DAD'S OPINION
This one was extremely tough for me to rate because I could truly see both sides of the argument. Should I give it credit for its uniqueness and the way it exposes kids to things no other alphabet book would ever even think of touching? Or should I ding it for being so strange and unrelatable for almost every kid from the city or suburbs that would ever think of opening it. In the end, I just had to give it a Donate for one simple reason: I honestly think this might be the first time my son laughed at something. You know, like in a "what the 'f' is this?" kid of way. Obviously, I couldn't have been prouder of him than I was at that moment. Unfortunately for author Arthur Geisert, that doesn't bode well for his Country Road ABC.
Buy / Borrow / DONATE / Destroy
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