Real Cowboys

There's not a howdy to be heard in this hymn to contemporary cowboys, providing a nice contrast to the many jokey books about them. A sentence beginning "real cowboys…" introduces each new task or scene ("Real cowboys are safe. They pull their hats low because the sun can burn, and wear chaps so the cacti and brush don't cut them"), and a fair number of life lessons are thus introduced ("Real cowboys are patient…" "Real cowboys take turns…" "Real cowboys want peace…") and saved from smarminess by their concrete grounding in real cowboy tasks. Young cowpokes will appreciate the seriousness given to their passion, an apparent respect shared by Bean's dramatic illustrations, "hand-stenciled shapes and textures layered with the computer and printed in four Pantone colors." With details that verge on the abstract, each page-turn comes as a visual surprise, moving, say, from a double-page spread of a cowboy herding cattle across a highway to a tender close-up of a cowboy rescuing a calf tangled in cacti. A three-spread sequence of a dust storm and stampede is ferociously exciting but ends with a lament for thus-lost cattle and dogs: "Real cowboys cry." The book ends with an existential turn entirely in keeping with the ongoing atmosphere, but those musings about life after death might be lost on young ranch hands. roger sutton

In this hymn to contemporary cowboys, a sentence beginning with "real cowboys..." introduces each new task or scene ("Real cowboys are patient..."). Young cowpokes will appreciate the seriousness given to their passion, an apparent respect shared by Bean's dramatic illustrations. With details that verge on the abstract, each page turn comes as a visual surprise. The book ends with an existential turn.