In this bouncy, rhyming introduction to animal sounds, Angela DiTerlizzi (the Adventures of Meno series, illustrated by husband Tony DiTerlizzi) imagines secret meanings behind the common "moo" and "baa." A blond-haired boy pictured with his mother starts with a question: "How do we know/ what animals say/ when they say what they say/ with their sounds every day?" Joey Chou (Crazy by the Letters) hints at the creatures to be introduced when they form a semicircle around the boy in the opening image. The first couplet introduces a cow and her calf: "When a cow says moo,/ does she really mean who?" Animal-shaped clouds (a bunny, a fish, an alligator) float in the sky above them. Next come a lion and his cub ("When a lion says roar,/ does he really mean more?") and a horse and colt forming the "hay" equivalent of snow angels ("When a horse says neigh,/ does she really mean hay?"). A trip-off-the-tongue refrain brings the three animals together: "They say what they say/ in their own silly way,/ when they say what they say/ with their sounds every day."
DiTerlizzi similarly introduces two more trios of animals and, at the refrain, shows the group of critters mentioned thus far. One meltingly sweet image in cotton-candy pink depicts a mother sheep peering through a nursery window ("When a sheep says baa,/ does he really mean Ma?") as a wide-eyed lamb reaches his hooves out to her. It ends with the human child relating back to his own mother with a message of love we can all understand. Delightful. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness