White Ravens’98/Spain/66562
Armijo, Consuelo (text)
Gómez, Fernando (illus.)
Seráse una vez
(Once upon a time there will be) 
Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1997. 119pp
(Espasa Juvenil; 25)
ISBN 84-239-8879-1
Cow - Pasture - Country life
A herd of wayward cows romps about the pastures of the farmer Adolfo,
their eccentricity giving him all kinds of trouble and keeping the entire
village on edge. In eleven episodes Consuelo Armijo describes the richly
varied lives of these cows - such as an encounter with a conceited
breeding bull imported from Holland, or their identity problems such as
when one considers itself to be a bird, while another takes itself for a
monkey. Altogether they lead a paradisical life that is then only be
surpassed in the real bovine heaven. Armijo endows this absurd, witty and
grotesque fairy tale-like story with a fast rhythm, corres-ponding to the fast
tempo of her protagonists' escapades. The continuous use of the future
tense seems at first glance peculiar, but is quite in keeping with the
pleasures of creative storytelling, with all its speculation and disregard for
plausibility. (8+)

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