Cock-a-Doodle Oops Children’s book review

Don’t let your son or daughter go the whole summer without reading! Experts agree that children who read during the summer enhance their language skills.  One way to ensure comprehension and create good reading habits is to make sure you have a good stock of books available for your kid’s summer reading list. When given a choice of many books to read, ‘Cock-a-Doodle Oops’ was my daughter’s first choice.

Written by Lori Degman, illustrated by Deborah Zemke, and published by Creston Books, Cock-a-Doodle Oops begins with a farmer that is unable to wake up except for the sound of his roosters ‘cock-a-doodle’. Unfortunately for the farmer and all the farm animals the rooster announces that he has saved up his money and going someplace sunny. The rooster needs a beach vacation! The animals are all in distress until the rooster tells them that they will do the ‘cock-a-doodling’ for him. Each day a different animal takes their turn to wake the farmer. Each attempt is even funnier than the last. Much to their dismay, the farmer just won’t wake up to their ‘cock-a-doodling’.

After seven days the rooster returns…with a terrible cold. He can’t ‘cock-a-doodle’ loud enough to wake the farmer. The animals, desperate to wake the farmer, decide to call him on the telephone answering machine. The rooster’s quiet ‘cock-a-doodle’ wakes the farmer over the machine. The farmer abruptly wakes up after a seven-day slumber, stiff and hungry.

At the end of the story, the farmer finds that the rooster hadn’t woken him for seven days and assumes that it is due to the rooster’s cold. The caring farmer suggests that a trip to the beach will heal his cold…exactly what caused the cold in the first place. A hilarious end to a hilarious story.

This rhyming story is much like a poem with a plot. The story has a wonderful flow from sentence to sentence. The flow keeps children interested in the story, wanting to hear/read more. The phrasing is smooth and easy for early readers. The content of the story relates to most children, regardless of sex or age. This story almost seems like a fun twist on the children’s song ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’.

The illustrations in ‘Cock-a-Doodle Oops’ are bright and fun. The cartoon-like farm animals are eye-catching. One of the touches by the illustrator is that on every page in the background is the farmer’s house with ‘z’s’ escaping from the window. This allows the reader to be aware that the farmer is sleeping during the entire story. The poor farm animals are trying so hard to wake him but without the roosters ‘cock-a-doodle’ he continues to sleep.

Overall, both my daughter and I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

What is on your children’s summer reading list?

“Cock-a-Doodle Oops!” Author Lori Degman

Lori Degman is a teacher of deaf and hard-of-hearing students by day and a writer of picture books by night, weekend, and school holidays. Her debut picture book, “1 Zany Zoo,” was the winner of the 2008 Cheerios New Author Contest. A mini version of the book was distributed inside boxes of Cheerios in the spring of 2010 and the hardcover, published by Simon & Schuster, was released later that year. Degman lives in a suburb of Chicago.

Illustrations by Deborah Zemke

Deborah Zemke puts words and pictures together in unexpected and lively ways. The author and illustrator of more than 20 children’s books, including the popular “Doodles at Dinner” books and placemats, Zemke brings a serious sense of silliness to her work. She is a frequent contributor of Critter Crackups to Ranger Rick magazine, the designer of the font ITC ZemkeHand, and the illustrator of 40 books for children and adults. She lives in the
middle of the U.S. in Columbia, Missouri, with her husband, daughter, and studio assistant, a border collie named Abby.

Creston made a name for itself in 2013 as an independent press publishing books as equally educational as they are entertaining.