The team behind Hogwash tells another comical farmyard tale, this time starring a group of horses that play by night and sleep all day.
The poor farmer can't figure out what's wrong. Maybe they're afraid of wolves at large. He decides to stay up and keep watch. What he spies instead is pure horseplay. "Those horses didn't sleep one bit./ They frolicked on the loose./ They joined in games like Hide-and-Seek,/ Leapfrog, and Duck, Duck, Goose." In a trio of vignettes, McMullan (I Stink!) depicts a tan horse lifting its right front paw in front of his eyes while the other horses hide, lining up to leap over a gray horse, and taunting an unfortunate donkey while the "play some Pin-the-Tail." Wilson's (Bear Snores On) rhyming couplets milk the humor from the horses' antics and mirror their ceaseless efforts to outsmart the farmer. When they're confined to the barn, they pass out poker chips, and snack on seven-layer dips. Even when the farmer stays up all night in the barn with the horses to ensure there's "No Horseplay!" the critters still get the last laugh.
Children who do their best to postpone bedtime will see themselves in these humorous horses, brought to life by McMullan's carefree watercolors and bold outlines. And parents will sympathize with the farmer, his stamina outmatched every time by the coltish energy of his four-legged charges. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness