Craic On

I enjoy getting a selection of children’s and teenage fiction from Little Island Publishers in Dublin to review. Recently I received ‘Cow Belle, Beauty Queen’ by Leena Parkkinen to review so I asked 8 year old Aoife Bradley to have a read and give me her feedback. As an avid reader, she willingly agreed.

The story evolves around Milena who discovers one day that there’s a cow in her bath. Semi-Skimmed (the cow) is no ordinary cow! She can talk, take baths, and is determined to win the Cow Belle Beauty Queen pageant! There is a lot of competition in the pageant and Skimmy is a little thin (for a cow). Milena must help Skimmy win this pageant and see the likes of Hefty Hoofington, Snippy and Snooty be set aside.

Aoife read the story of Milena and Skimmy and her feedback was as follows:

‘I enjoyed the story of Cow Belle very much. I particularly liked the illustrations as they let you know exactly what was going on in the book and they made a very big difference while reading the story. The characters in the story are all very believable. The illustrations help to make them such. This was my first read by Leena Parkkinen and I would definitely like to read another book by her.’

Cow Belle, Beauty Queen is written by Leena Parkkinen, Illustrated by Katja Wehner and published by Little Island. It can be found in all good bookshops nationwide.