Wednesday, February 23, 2011

What Does Cow Say? giveaway


In celebration of my spring release, What Does Cow Say? (Scholastic/Cartwheel Books), I'm giving away this cute barn carrying case, small plush cow, and an autographed copy of the book. This rhyming lift-the-large-flap board book is mega-sturdy and bigger than many board books at 7" x 8.5".

To enter:
Drop a comment with a creative (g-rated) guess regarding what a cow might say other than the obvious. Two winners will be randomly chosen March 30th and posted here and at readertotz. Be sure to leave your contact email, or come back then to see if you've won.

Story scoop: These farm animals have big mouths! When the sun came up, Duck went Quack which woke his neighbor, Cow, who went MOO, which woke Rooster who went Cock-a-doodle-doo. . . As each animal awakens, totz can guess what it says and open its big-flap beak, snout, or mouth to read its signature sound. The final spread shows a child waking up--with open arms and a final HOORAY! to welcome the day!

Art scoop: Instead of a manuscript, I submitted this 2-page dummy to Scholastic/Cartwheel for consideration. All the mouths had working flaps taped over them, so they'd lift to reveal the animal sound below. A lot goes into creating these seemingly uncomplicated books. For instance, the title and some of the text changed during the editing process. And as you can see, artist Jannie Ho made the book way cuter than my proposal.












Lucky me to have Jannie illustrate this book! She studied illustration at Parsons School of Design in NYC, and was a designer at Nickelodeon, Scholastic, and associate art director at TIME Magazine for Kids before becoming a full-time illustrator. Wow!

~ Joan Holub

What Does Cow Say?
Author: Joan Holub
Illustrator: Jannie Ho
Scholastic, Cartwheel Books, 2011

34 comments:

lulilut said...

"More cowbell!"

ala SNL / Christopher Walken. ;)

skkorman said...

"What a load of bull!"

Joan Holub said...

I love it! Keeping 'em cowing, um, coming.

~ Joan

Jennie said...

Do I look fat in these spots?

Joan Holub said...

LOL, Jennie!

kami said...

Who moooooooooved my cheese?

MCDuncan said...

"I'm feeling lactose intolerant today."

Joan Holub said...

Udderly funny, you guys!

Nichole@JustChildrensBooks said...

Boo, I'm too tired to moo!

Diandra Mae said...

"Mooooon Riverrrr..."

Joan Holub said...

Nichole, this sounds like a mixed-up who am I kind of children's book in the making!

Diandra, LOL. This reminds me of Breakfast at Tiffany's, a favorite movie!

Thanks for the amooosing contributions, you two!

Martha Brockenbrough said...

"Hey pig, get off my lawn."

Unknown said...

Holy cow - tonight we're going to the moovies! :D

Meredith said...

What do cows drink? No, not milk...we make milk!

meredithfl at gmail dot com

Joan Holub said...

LOLOL, Martha! A fiesty trespassing pig.

Hannah, I hope the cows enjoyed their mooovie night. What would cows go to see I wonder? Mooooonstruck?

I'm so glad they do! I have chocolate milk about every other day. Thank you cows. And thank you, Meredith!

Unknown said...

oh this book looks so great and I love all of Jannie's illustrations...wonderful concept too!!!! I think the cow could say something like

"Got Milk"
"I'm a little Skim and a lot of Rock and Roll"

love all of your work....

Have a great weekend!!!

Tracy said...

"I'm TRYING to get some beauty sleep here!"
Love this book :) Jannie is my very favorite artist :)

Mozi Esme said...

Mooove out of my way!

Janemaritz at yahoo dot com

Shelly B said...

"Am I outstanding in my field?"

~Shelly
shelcows AT gmail DOT com

Amy said...

I think the cow would say "the kids at my library would love reading this story in storytime complete with props!"

:) Amy

mnlibrarian at gmail dot com

Shirley said...

"To moo, or not to moo, that is the question!"

Congratulations to you and Jannie on such a wonderful book!

shirley@shirleyngbenitez.com

sarahjunie said...

Hmmm...Mooo'vin on up...

rubynreba said...

Moove over. We are mooving in!
pbclark(at)netins(dot)net

Liza767 said...

we just mooooved our books around to fit your mooooving story on our shelves

Joan Holub said...

Thanks, Diana!
I’m a huge fan of Jannie’s, too. She MADE this book with her art. It is so cute! Got milk-hahaha

Hi Tracy,
So true! Even bovines need their beauty ZZZs. Jannie is amazing. I agree wholeheartedly.

Esme,
Thanks for stopping in! Good to see a mooover and shaker in kid lit. xox

LOL, Shelly! Tee hee.

Joan Holub said...

Hi Amy, I love the idea of storytime props. The mouths, snouts, and beaks open to reveal the sounds farm animals make, which usually illicits plenty of giggles and interested hands.

Shirley,
This is so cute! Whether til nobler to chew cud or…Hey, what’s cud anyway?
Thank you for the congratulations. Jannie and I appreciate it!

Sarah, you post was so…mooo’vin. Thank you! I can’t believe I didn’t think of that one.

Ruby,
Cute kitties! I’m mooovin over. Moove on in, girl! xox

That’s so sweet, Liza. I love that you moved to make offer our cow book a happy home.

Thanks all, for the creative posts!
~ Joan

Brandy Ischy said...

Can I have some gum? I'm tired of chewing my cud.

Annette W. said...

Moove some more and make that milkshake!

This looks really adorable. I loved seeing your storyboard, too!

Reader Unfolded said...

I think the cow would say "More grass please?" because you know...they eat grass. So uncreative, but hopefully creative enough :D

erikadlugoAT yahoo(DOT)com

Andrea said...

Moovelous!

Thanks for sharing!

as at pass-ed.com

Joan Holub said...

Hi Brandy,
Laughing over the idea of cows with gum. Why do they chew so intensively all the time anyway?

Annette, Yum, milkshakes. I'm so glad you enjoyed the storyboard. I was a little squeamish about posting it since it suffers by comparison to Jannie's art. But I like seeing other authors' behind-the-scenes book creation process, so I figured, what the hay! (Something a cow might say. :o)

Erika, I love it. Our cowspeak is going grass-green! And the grass is always greener on the side of the hill the cow is not on, so they must always be on the mooove, right? Just like the cookies are always on the other side of the room and I must...okay, enough of me and my cookie habit.

Andrea, a moovelous comment! Thanks!

I'll randomly choose 2 winners on March 31st. (Actually, I'm going to make a friend do it by choosing numbers that I'll then correspond with posts.)

apple blossom said...

cow might say . Who woke me?

ABreading4fun [at] gmail [dot] com

Joan Holub said...

Hi Apple Blossom in ND! That's a state I've never been to. I think cows would definitely say this if they could cowspeak! I know I say it every morning. Actually, I think my words are more like: Do I really have to get up? :o)

Joan Holub said...

THANK YOU all for playing the What Does Cow Say? game with me. You all came up with funny stuff!

In order to choose the winners, my husband randomly chose two numbers between 1 and 33 to correspond to the 33 comments. (He had to re-pick one because I won my own prize!) Congratulations to Annette and Tracy! You won the cow, barn, and What Does Cow Say?

Since there was such a good response to this giveaway, I'm also giving away two autographed books. Those winners are Jennie and Diana. Congratulations, ladies!

Please email me at joanholub at aol dot com with your snailmail addresses, and I'll send your goodies.

Thanks again, everyone! This was simply moovelous fun!