Children’s Book Review | The Cows Go Moo! (+ Author Interview!)

The Cows Go Moo Review

The Cows Go Moo!, written and illustrated by Jim Petipas, is a book...a song...a band tour...and a mission! This picture book follows a band of cows called "The Cows" (duh!) as they travel the world on tour and sing their hit song, "The Cows Go Moo!"

When you first open the book, you're introduced to the members of the band—Beaker, Nellie, Sedgewick, Beatrice, and Chaz—then invited to download their free song "The Cows Go Moo!"

The book is then the words of the song playing, each line of the song receiving a dedicated illustration in the book. You follow the cows through different seasons, activities, and locations around the world, all reflecting the lyrics of the song.

You'll see them playing in the mud, taking bubble baths, and, always a funny favorite in my house, passing gas after visiting food trucks. The book ends with the cows performing on "stage," then shares the sheet music to the song!

Where to begin with my review? This is a super fun concept! The idea of a cute, kid-friendly song, combined with silly illustrations even adults will enjoy, makes the entire Cows Go Moo universe a homerun in my book.

Most picture books are written and illustrated strictly for children. It's always refreshing to find one that keeps parents equally in mind!

Why did I enjoy the illustrations as an adult? Because I'm a nerd and love word play.

One cow wore a shirt that said, "More cowbell!"

In another scene, cows are wearing "Cowvin Klein" and "Udder Armour" underwear.

A cow's bathroom shows a version of Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup cans, except...it's evaporated milk instead.

Most younger kids won't pick up on the word play, but they'll definitely pick up on the art play.

Small mice run throughout the illustrations, reacting to the cows and adding their own humor.

On one spread, cows play their song in silly underwear.

On Easter Island, where a cow toots, one of the stone heads has fallen over with a huge clothespin holding its nose.

Although this is a book meant to follow along with a song, it's also a book where your child will definitely linger over and keep revisiting each illustration, noticing new details every time.

As an author and book reviewer who reads a lot of children's books, what also stood out to me was the quality of the book. With a durable dust jacket, beautifully designed end pages, and effortless layflat-ability (Is that a word?! I'm making it one!), this is an undeniably high-quality, highly giftable book.

What's especially cool is that it's not just a book! The Cows Go Moo! also boasts a companion activity book, where kids can color actual illustrations from the picture book.

And, it's the first of what I hope will be a long series! The next book, The Cows Go Moo Shuffle!, along with its companion activity book, offers another fun musical journey.

Best of all, The Cows Go Moo! represents a mission. One dollar from every hardcover sold is donated to help provide real cows to some of the hungriest children and families in villages around the world!

Overall, this is a hilarious singalong book with engaging illustrations that kids and adults alike are sure to enjoy. You can find The Cows Go Moo! on Amazon.

The Cows Go Moo! Author Interview

Want to learn more about author/illustrator Jim Petipas? I did too! He was gracious enough to field a few questions and share what’s next for him!

Deb: The Cows Go Moo! offers a fun musical journey. What inspired you to write it?

Jim: It all started with a song—simply called “The Cow Song.”

Back in the ’80s, some friends and I wrote it for a summer camp skit night. It was silly, it made people laugh, and that was pretty much the whole idea.

Then in 2014, my daughters heard the song and said, “Dad, you should turn that into a children’s picture book!”

That was the spark. I began expanding the song and developing the idea, and it was their initial encouragement that motivated me to keep pressing forward and ultimately finish the book.

I eventually took a class at MassArt in Boston on writing and illustrating children’s picture books, which helped me understand the process of putting a picture book together. I also recorded the song in the studio with a few musician friends, and four years later, The Cows Go Moo! was finally ready to head out to pasture!

Deb: The book dedication mentions this song was written and performed by you and your brother and friends when you were teenagers, "udders" included! Please, please, please tell us more about that!

Jim: My group of friends back home called ourselves The Beakers, and I was known as King Beak. We all went to summer camp together, and as I mentioned, one year we came up with “The Cow Song” for skit night.

Our costumes were pretty sophisticated: blown-up surgical gloves for udders, toilet paper rolls attached to ball caps for horns, and paper cups with nose holes cut into them and taped to our faces. We were quite the herd!

Apparently, people found it pretty amoosing, because we were asked to perform “The Cow Song” on many other occasions over the years.

There’s also a fun connection to the books today. Beaker, the drummer and leader of the cow band, got his name from The Beakers and is patterned a little bit after me.

Who knew King Beak would still be hanging around all these years later?

Deb: This book is jam-packed with so many fun moving pieces - from the song lyrics themselves, to word play and silly illustrations, to the wide variety of locations the cows visit. Do you have a personal favorite part or page of the book?

Jim: That’s a toss-up between “Chew their cud!” and “In their underwear!” Those two still make me laugh.

I really poured my heart and soul into every drawing, trying to make each one the best—and funniest—it could be for the reader. There are little jokes and Easter eggs everywhere.

The cows even strike poses inspired by musicians in both books, from Pete Townshend of The Who to The Beatles, Bono, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

I also love that the cows travel around the world. It gave me a chance to celebrate different cultures, places, art, music and some pretty famous “moosicians.”

I wanted kids and adults to have fun exploring the illustrations together and hopefully notice something new each time. The goal from the beginning was to make the whole experience udderly amoosing!

My second book, The Cows Go Moo Shuffle!, follows the band from Boston to Austin, stopping at major moosic cities along the way. There’s even a dance that goes along with the book and song. Do the Shuffle!

Deb: I'm always jealous of authors who can also illustrate! (My skills are limited to stick people.) Can you share a little about your art journey with us?

Jim: I’ve always loved art. As a kid, I was constantly drawing cars, animals, and boats, and I’d check “how to draw” books out of the library. I took four years of drafting in high school and at one point seriously considered becoming a marine architect.

When I started The Cows Go Moo!, I hadn’t done that level of artwork in a long time—and I certainly hadn’t drawn cartoon cows!

The MassArt class taught me a lot about the process of creating a picture book, but the real artistic awakening happened at my drawing table. I sketched, reworked, and revised the drawings over and over until I got them where I wanted them.

YouTube was also a tremendous resource. I learned from other artists about inking, creating depth, using perspective, and other techniques that helped bring the illustrations to life. There was a lot of trial and error, but I loved seeing my abilities grow along with the characters.

The first book was created entirely with traditional pen-and-ink techniques, while my second book was drawn digitally on my iPad using Procreate. I really enjoyed learning a whole new way to illustrate.

Music has always been the other side of my creative life. I’m a drummer and today play in and lead the alternative rock band Broken Daisies, so combining music and art in these books feels pretty natural to me.

Deb: I love that the Cows Go Moo universe supports such an important cause! Can you tell us more about your mission to support children and families around the world?

Jim: We like to call them Cows With A Cause!

While I was developing the first book, I was reading Blake Mycoskie’s Start Something That Matters. His story with TOMS and its giving model really inspired me.

I still remember having that moment when I thought, “Hey, I could do something like that with The Cows Go Moo!” And Buy-A-Book, Give-A-Cow was born.

Today, for every hardcover we sell, we set aside $1 toward providing cows to families through Heifer International. So far, we’ve donated five actual cows, and we’re hoping that herd keeps growing as more books find their way into readers’ hands.

I love that these cows can make people laugh, sing and dance while also helping provide real cows to families in need. That part of the mission means a great deal to me.

Deb: Your bio mentions your experience as an adolescent counselor and youth pastor. From your experience, do you have any advice for the parents of kids reading this picture book, to help their young children grow into well-rounded teens?

Jim: For many years in youth ministry, I talked about my Five F’s: Faith, Fun, Friends, Food and Family. Those were hallmarks of my ministry, and in different ways they’ve carried into my counseling work and how I’ve tried to live and parent.

I think we can give our kids a foundation of faith and values, make room for plenty of fun, encourage good friendships, enjoy meals and experiences together, and keep investing in our family relationships.

As parents, we certainly don’t get everything right, and ultimately our kids have their own journeys to walk. But we can keep showing up, listening, loving them, and letting them know we’re there for them. I think that matters whether they’re five, fifteen or fifty.

Deb: What's your vision for the future? Do you have more books in the works? Or any upcoming projects you're excited about?

Jim: The herd definitely isn’t done yet!

We now have two musical picture books, The Cows Go Moo! and The Cows Go Moo Shuffle!, companion coloring/activity books, Beaker the plush cow, T-shirts, and other Moo Merch on our website. I’d love to create more plush characters in the future too.

And I’m now working on book number three!

My daughter Sophia said to me, “Dad, since you like metal music, how about The Cows Go Metal!?” She definitely does not share my love of metal, but I loved her idea!

To keep the cow theme going, I changed the title to The Cows Go MOOtal! I’m hoping to release the song and book in 2027.

This one introduces a brand-new character named Nigel, who is the main character in the story and song. I don’t want to give too much away, but Nigel literally saves the show in this new Moosical adventure with his Uncle Chaz!

Being a self-published author, getting your books discovered can be challenging. My hope is that the right families, teachers, librarians and booksellers continue to discover this little herd of books and fall in love with what we’re doing.

My goal is to keep celebrating humor, music, art, giving—and all things cows! Hopefully, we can keep creating something families enjoy together while growing our herd of Cows With A Cause!

Thanks so much for joining us today, Jim!

You can listen to The Cows Go Moo! on Spotify and Apple Music, follow The Cows on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, X, Instagram, Pinterest, Linktree, and The Cows Go Moo website, and pick up your own copy of The Cows Go Moo! on Amazon.