Title: Farmer Barnaby Fred
Author: Madelyn Anderson
Illustrator: Gary Bartholomew
Publisher: Author’s Tranquility Press
ISBN: 978-1-957208-96-1
Pages: 19
Genre: Illustrated Children’s Book
Reviewed by: Beth Adams
Hollywood Book Reviews
Right from the first page I knew this book would be a very special experience. Author Madelyn Anderson, along with illustrator Gary Bartholomew, have created a funny, adventurous, and extremely clever children’s story which bounces along with a rhyming beat and exceptionally artful and talented illustrations. Together these elements bring this book into the Best-of-Class fun category for entertaining children’s stories, and will be a major hit at bedtime – or anytime for that matter.
Farmer Barnaby Fred had a bundle of hay hit his head, then the doctor tells him to go to bed. In bed he dreams about the personification of all of the farm animals doing zany things. These included pigs taking a bath in their pens, and the rooster played tennis, the donkey counted to 100 by 10’s, other animals cooked up lunch while the St. Bernard dog made fruit punch. Then Farmer Barnaby Fred wakes up from his dream, and looking out his bedroom window, he is comforted by seeing all the farm details are what they should seem normally.
Perhaps a bit ‘lite’ on the book’s theme or moral, it overwhelms with humor, fun and creatively. One of my favorite details is the sign on the wall above the farmer’s bed; it reads, “Home is Where Your House Is.” That’s funny!
The book does pry out the elements of dreamland to little ones, asking at the end a rhetorical question about dreams to those reading the book or listening to it being read to them. This is why I emphasized the best time to read it is at bedtime.
Farmer Barnaby Fred is certain to delight the minds and hearts of all readers, and would be an ideal gift for the lower single-digit-year-old birthday gifts as well as a welcome addition to all family libraries, so it could be passed along and shared with multiple generations of kids and grandkids.