Where's My Cow? [Hardcover]

"Where's My Cow?" is a companion book to Terry Pratchett's latest Discworld novel, "Thud!". Or, rather, it is three books in one. It is the children's book that his grace the Duke of Ankh-Morpork Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, reads without fail every evening to his son, young Sam. And it is the book that Sam Vimes turns the children's story into (after all, why should a city child be read tales about moo-cows and oink-pigs when there are critters like Foul Ole Ron and Coffin' Henry he is much more likely to encounter?). And surrounding these, it is fundamentally a book about Sam Vimes reading a book to his son, a sweet tale of a complex man trying to be a good father. There is enough self-referentiation in this very slender volume to make a post-modern literary critic dizzy and gibber about meta-fiction and meta-meta-fiction. For the Pratchett/Discworld fan, there are a least a few treasures hidden in the illustrations -- such as that portrait of a bearded, black-hatted gentleman on the wall of young Sam's room. And what is that medal worn by Foul Ole Ron? Bugrit!

No, despite being a product of Terry Pratchett's imagination, I didn't 'love' this one, but it worked well on several levels.

As a kid's book: Taking this one up against a tough audience, a remarkably intelligent and precocious 4-yr old girl, it did very well. She was able to follow the idea of a dad reading a book to his child as the theme of the book, and clearly understood that Dad (in the book) was taking liberties with the text. And that Mom caught Dad taking liberties with the book went over very well (the girl involved laughed so hard she nearly threw up). The illustrations were a big hit with the young lady, and she was particularly taken with the pet dragons.

As an addendum to "Thud!", by the same author. It works, but not quite as well. There is a new artist illustrating "Where's My Cow?", and this artist's style doesn't (I feel) work as well for DiscWorld characters. "Where's My Cow" is fairly central to "Thud", so to see the book it self was somewhat rewarding, but a strict rendition of "Where's my Cow" would have been fairly lame. So liberties were taken to make it more appealing to a general audience and for parents to read to children.

As a father reading this book to my kid: It works well. Any parent can see how well DiscWorld holds up the mirror to life in how Sam Vimes plays with his son as he reads this book. Any parent has suffered through the sixtieth reading of a book written on a two year old level, and many of us have succumb to the desire to make those dreadful children's books a little more interesting. Many of us have also been intensely browbeaten by our wives for this. (Informal research indicates that the desire to take liberties with kids' books is a dad thing, hence the gender specific language). To see this as the theme of a kids' book is a hoot. Also, the way this book is written, it invites using different voices for different aspects of the book, a great source of entertainment for the munchkins.

In all, I would only read it once for myself, maybe twice for the illustrations, but don't mind reading it numerous times for the young'un (and the young'un is just fine with this).

I love Pratchett's work. I own all of the books he has written or co-written, but have generally avoided the tie-ins that are largely the work of others. I should have avoided this one too.

The text, what there is of it, is almost entirely lifted from "Thud!" and is a "funny once" for those familiar with Discworld. And if you've read "Thud!" you've read this. But it's the illustrations which ruin this work for me. Pratchett has tended to avoid detailed physical descriptions of his characters, leaving it to the reader's imagination. I therefore found it jolting that the depiction of Sam Vimes, in particular, was so completely unlike my own mental image of him. Paul Kidby's illustrations in "The Last Hero" seemed to fit much better.

If you're buying this book thinking it would be good to read to a young child, think again. It is a book about a children's book, not the book itself. The illustrations are lavish, and it would appear that there's lots of detail to savor, but the depiction of Sam Vimes as looking like Buzz Lightyear really was a turnoff to me.

If you have to own "everything Pratchett", then go ahead and buy this too. It's certainly not bad. But I found it rather unfulfilling. If you haven't already, buy Pratchett's "Once More (With Footnotes)" from Amazon. Now THAT is a worthwhile read!