Publication news: Yes You Can, Cow!
It’s here! YES YOU CAN, COW! is now out in the world. A shiny new picture book with words by me and pictures by the amazing Rikin Parekh. It’s a book about being brave, getting comfortable with making mistakes, and the power of YET (this beautiful idea that it’s not that you can’t do something - you just can’t do it YET!). It’s also about empathy, understanding, and supporting our friends. It’s my first book with Faber Children’s and with Rikin and it has had the BEST start…
It was in the PAPERS! The Times/The Sunday Times to be precise: ‘Funny and encouraging for everyone, this inventive picture book about failing and trying again involves a performance of the rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle, in which the cow is afraid to jump over the moon’.
It was on the Waterstones website as a Best New Picture Book! And it had a special little ‘Waterstones Says’ review:
“Inspired by the classic nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle, Sirdeshpande and Parekh's charming tale of bovine stage-fright is perfect reading for all little ones with a fear of failure.”
The first ever book blogger review of Yes You Can, Cow! was just the most amazing thing ever. It blew me away. I love it so much I can’t even pull out my favourite bits so I’ll just link to it here. (THANK YOU, Picture Book Snob!)
More incredible comments followed. Teachers told us about their classes breaking into giggles. Parents told us about children having memorised the text already and spontaneously acting out the characters. We had the most wonderful reception on Twitter too!
THEN, last week, illustrator extraordinaire painted the window of a gorgeous bookshop in Abingdon called Mostly Books (a first for me!) and I got the chance to visit with the family. We had the warmest welcome from the loveliest booksellers. And just look at all those Cows (and dinos!) in the window. Never had a display of books in the window before so this was all very WOW.
Just one day before this little outing to Mostly Books, I got to see Yes You Can, Cow! IN PERSON in an actual bookshop. This was at Foyles Charing Cross where I met the wonderful children’s team and signed lots of books. And guess what?! This is actually my FIRST TIME EVER seeing one of my books in a bookshop. I was just flat out when How To Be Extraordinary published and then the pandemic happened (almost all my books are pandemic books!) and I’m only just venturing out. So amazing to see them out in the wild!
I had a lovely morning scooting about London with the incredible Louie Stowell, author of Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Being Good (Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month AND Indie Bookshops Book of the Month AND Hive Book of the Month!). I got to catch up with a fabulous writing friend too. More on the book tour in the near future because the fun continues! So much to share with you but I’ve picked the BUSIEST EVER time to do it. Gulp. Anyway, you’ll be hearing more from me very soon!