With nary a roof in sight, ten cowboys plus assorted critters rise at dawn to ride, rope, suffer mishaps, and scarf down "cowpoke stew," then sit around a campfire under the desert stars singing, from the looks of it, "Kumbayah" or something equally mellow. Aside from a spread of superfluous introductory phrases about the hands ("Tex calls on the ladies as regular as a goose goes barefoot," etc.), Stutson hangs her cadenced, very brief text on rhymes and partial rhymes. In San Souci's brightly colored paintings, cartoon cowboys gallop stylishly across open, dusty landscapes. Though a bit spirited for effective bedtime reading, this should be an action-packed opener for books such as Bill Martin's White Dynamite and Curly Kid (1989) or Steven Kellogg's wild and woolly Pecos Bill (1986). —John Peters, Booklist
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