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Prather’s Pick: Millie plays hide-and-seek

Diane Prather
Diane Prather
Diane_Prather

Congratulations go to Lou Dean Jacobs of Dinosaur who’s book, “On My Ass,” is a finalist in the Colorado Authors’ League writing competition. The book is in the Creative Nonfiction Book Category. The awards will be presented on May 8 during a banquet.

This past week I came upon the funniest picture book ever. “Millie and the Big Rescue” was written by Alexander Steffensmeier who lives in Germany. Millie is a black and white cow, and there are at least two other picture books for children about Millie. One of them, “Millie Waits for the Mail” received the California Young Readers Medal. The books are published in the United States by Walker Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Bloosmsbury Publishers.

As the book starts, the farm animals are playing hide-and-seek, their favorite game. Young readers (and adults, too) will have fun as they find all of the animals’ hiding places, especially those for the chickens. One chicken is lying flat under a tractor, and another has her head stuck in a birdhouse entrance, possibly not realizing that the rest of her body is sticking out. There’s a chicken in a watering can, one under a flowerpot (actually wearing a flowerpot), and one is lying so tight up against a building’s rain gutter that she’s hard to see.



The other animals have found their hiding spots, too, so Millie can’t find a good hiding place — considering her size. So Millie climbs up into a big tree. The thought of a cow climbing up in a tree is comical in itself, but there she is, looking out over the farm. (Readers will enjoy all of the sights below, some pretty funny-looking, too, such as the checkerboard hay field with round bale playing pieces.)

It isn’t long, however, until Millie thinks that her hiding place is a little too good. She wants to go back down. Now that’s a sight! Millie gets stuck on a branch, and she’s just hanging there. By now the other animals have found Millie. Two pigs, a horse and a dog decide to fashion a catapult, and the horse, wearing a tablecloth as a cape, is sent hurling up into the tree. The pigs and dog follow so now Millie has company.



Before long, the lady farmer realizes that her tablecloth is missing. It’s way too quiet, too. As soon as she takes a cake out of the oven she goes outdoors to see what’s going on. She props a ladder up against the tree and climbs up to the others, but things don’t go as planned.

There’s a lot more fun left in the book. The illustrations ate wonderful. The hardcover book (U.S. copyright of 2013) costs $16.99. You can also find the book at the Moffat County Library.


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