Cows in Action: The Viking Emoo-gency by Steve Cole

Cows in Action: The Viking Emoo-gency by Steve Cole
Buy Cows in Action: The Viking Emoo-gency by Steve Cole at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: The twelfth book in this series is not for adults to love too, but might well be moo-sic to young reader's ears.
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Maybe
Pages: 192	Date: February 2012
Publisher: Red Fox
ISBN: 9781849414012
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The future world's balance between cows and humans is a lot different to our own, as the bovine species has evolved into something a lot more intelligent; so much so that in order to gain the upper hand, both parties are using time travel to snatch advantages in other times and places. In this episode of the series, it's a robotic ter-moo-nator and a fundamentalist scientist who have gone back to Viking times, leaving just three special cows from the current age with the task to go back and sort things out on the side of a happier, human-friendly existence. Can they succeed, or will much of what we know of since the Viking era be re-moo-ved from our history books?

I've seen at my local library just how successful all of Steve Cole's series have been, and this has stretched to twelve books with this title. I have to say however there isn't much charm or other qualities that will mean the adult buyer will get much out of this before passing it to the intended young reader. It's a slapdash mix of absurdly throwing anything possible into the mix - mutated sea creatures, underwater bases out of James Bond's future - with a plethora of 'moo-'based puns, and a little bit of helpful historical truth.

But the young reader will be much more concerned with the zing of the action, and here's proof that while pigs might not fly, cows will; there's a lot of to-ing and fro-ing as to who is on whose side to disguise the lightness of the plot; and there's a host of small, quick action scenes, illustrated in a very basic cartoonish way. And there certainly is enough of a zing to things, and the use of a certain cake-based episode in history does not fail to raise a smile for its inventive appearance here.

So while I think the balance of things could be better crafted - there's the past and the future here and they don't gel, and should the narrator join in with the cast in punning, or vice versa? - I can easily admit I sound like a mature pedant, for whom the difference between his real age and that of the target audience here is just too great. Your nearest child won't have read such a cow-based comedy action book about Vikings and future science before, and I'm sure as part of a successful author's output this will still moo-ve off the shelves with a gusto.

I must thank the publishers for my review copy.

The Quest of the Warrior Sheep by Christopher Russell and Christine Russell focuses on a different species, but shows that charm the adult audience can also love.

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