Cowgirl

This disappointing photo documentary relates the experiences of a young Texas cowgirl. McGregor's first children's book, told in the voice of five-year-old Casey, is a hodgepodge assemblage of first-person facts, lumped together without discernible structure. While the particulars of ranch life recounted here--from cutting hay to feeding livestock to riding in a children's rodeo--will be novel to most readers, their seemingly random presentation makes them appear gratuitous and even tiresome. The decision to tell the story in Casey's voice unfortunately imparts a rather lifeless ``first-we-did-this-and-then-we-did-that'' quality. As a result, despite fleeting glimpses of family members, Casey comes off as a somewhat shadowy figure existing only in a vacuum; we don't even learn how old she is until the last page. The color photographs which capture Casey and her family on the ranch and at the rodeo are of uneven technical quality and often suffer from poor color reproduction. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)