Puss Reboots: Blog: August 2008: Smoky the Baby Goat

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Amore by Laura Wolf
Andromeda on the Street of Ducklings by Judi Hendricks
Another Dawn by Sandra Brown
Another Perfect Day by Steven Popkes
Bad Manners by Chris Manby
The Bamboo Confessions by Lauren Weisberger
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Lifetime Loser by James Ross
Moving Day by Cindy Chupack
An Open Letter to Earth by Scott Dalrymple
Persistence of Memory by J. M. Snyder
Poison Victory by Albert E. Cowdrey
The Political Prisoner by Charles Coleman Finlay
Pump Six by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Regent's Knight by J. M. Snyder
Shades of Darkness, Shades of Grace
Simplexity by Jeffrey Kluger
Smoky the Baby Goat by Mary Elting Folsom and Veronica Reed
There's a Cow in the Cabbage Patch by Clare Beaton and Stella Blackstone
The Truth About Nigel by Jennifer Weiner
The Two-Month Itch by Sarah Mlynowski
Voodoo Dolls, C-Cups and Eminem by Melissa Senate
Yoga Babe by Lauren Henderson

Previous month

Smoky the Baby Goat: 08/07/08

Mary Elting Folsom died in 2005 at the age of 98. She had a sixty year career as a children's book author and wrote more than seventy books. Most of them were nonfiction but she had a few fiction ones too. One of those fiction books is Smoky the Baby Goat (1947) which was illustrated by Veronica Reed.

Smoky the baby goat is taken to live a the farm of Polly, Mike and Sue and their parents. He is introduced to their dog, cat and rooster. Over the course of the day Smoky pals around with the children and the other animals and learns how to be a goat after trying first to be a person, a dog, a cat and a rooster.

It's a cute story clearly aimed at young readers. All the proper names are written in capital letters and there is a high repetition of words and phrases.

Each page also has a colorful illustration. The words and the pictures flow together. Veronica Reed's style of drawing reminds me of Mark Teague's illustrations in the How Do Dinosaurs... books written by Jane Yolen.