From School Library Journal:
Tafuri has created yet another exceptional book
for young children.Simple in concept,the circular
story begins with the declaration that "This is
the farmer,"showing the man putting on his rubber
boots and readying himself for some serious work.
The chain of events proceeds quietly at first,but
gains momentum as the cat spots the mouse.Eventually
the mayhem concludes with the donkey's kick,which
opens the gate that the farmer–ignorant of the goings-on–walks through.The mouse,once introduced,is hidden on each of the remaining pages,cleverly enough
to engage youngsters in the search.Evoking a similar
mood to Tafuri's Early Morning in the Barn
(Greenwillow,1983),the well-defined,watercolor-and-ink double-spread illustrations are once again of the highest quality.The brief story is rhythmic,
predictable,and printed in extra-large type.The fine
artwork,appealing subject matter,readable text,and
large format makeThis Is The Farmer a hot
candidate for story times.
From Publishers Weekly:
Set in generously sized type, a succinct text shapes a sequence of events into a slice of farm life. Tafuri's (Have You Seen My Duckling? ) large-scale, elegant illustrations dominate the double-page spreads, with figures often overflowing the pictures' colored borders. The story starts out with the farmer, ``who kisses his wife / who pats the dog / that scratches a flea / that lands on a cat'' and so on, until the conclusion, in which the farmer milks the cow and sends a squirt of milk into the waiting cat's mouth. Rendered in watercolor and ink, the artwork is pleasingly detailed: geese waddle through the barnyard, three kittens examine a ladybug and a brown mouse can be found scampering or hiding on all but the first three spreads. Ages 2-up.
