Farmer Brown’s world is changing.  The barn is noisy and the animals are making demands.  The cows have found an old typewriter.  Farmer Brown and the barn animals, cows and chickens, type, exchange notes, and negotiate through Duck, a neutral party.  Eventually, an agreement is reached but not without Farmer Brown giving in to the animals.  They get their electric blankets. Then the ducks try it and the last page tells the story.  Farmer Brown is a push-over to keep the farm peaceful.

This book is appropriate to read to Pre-K through 3.  Third graders would enjoy reading it to younger children.  The pictures are large enough for a group to view.  It is delightful because of its rhythmic, repetitive language and its explicit watercolor pictures. The class could join in reciting the noise that the typewriter makes. The language is rich and does not talk down to children, though.  Ms. Cronin includes words such as ultimatum, on strike, background, furious, and emergency. The pictures are outlined in thick, black brush strokes that keep them from fading into the background.  The colors display the characters’ emotions.  Booklist’s review states, “Lewin's wild line-and-watercolor cartoons are perfectly suited to this barnyard farce about animals that go on strike to demand better working conditions.” The emotional display of the animals’ gestures makes them seem as people in the story.  Of course, cows can type and know all about such things as electric blankets.  The animals are believable characters. 

Farmer Brown shows how it is okay to get angry but then get over it and do the sensible thing to work out the problem.  Conflict management and negotiation is an underlying theme of this book in a humorous setting.  I believe children and adults will enjoy this book.  Publishers Weekly’s review says, “Kids and underdogs everywhere will cheer for the clever critters that calmly and politely stand up for their rights, while their human caretaker becomes more and more unglued.”  It reminded me of the popular book and movie, Chicken Run.

Horn book had this to say, "That typewriters may be as anachronistic to today's kids as rumble seats and spinning wheels won't lessen their enjoyment of this amusing story. They may have never heard the racket of a real typewriter, but they will certainly be familiar with the art of negotiation, and will soon be chanting along: 'Click, clack, moo. Click, clack, moo. Clickety, clack, moo.'”

A 2001 Caldecott Honor Book
Named one of the Best Children's Books 2000 by Publisher's Weekly

2000. Review of Click, clack, moo in Publishers Weekly.  Available from

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0689832133/reviews/103-3926711-3700639#06898321337299.  Accessed 12 September 2004.

Hornbook review. Available from http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=8-0689832133-0. Accessed 12 September 2004.

Rochman, Hazel. Review of Click, clack, moo in Booklist.  Available from

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0689832133/reviews/103-3926711-3700639#06898321337299. Accessed 12 September 2004.