Wisconsin author (and school librarian) Lee Bock’s debut picture book is a funny, mixed-up story about a tired farmer and his restless animal charges. Every time Farmer Felandro is about to doze off, there’s trouble in the barn. The exhausted farmer pulls on his old, worn work boots and heads outside to set things right, which in turns sets something else wrong. Each time he returns to bed, he goes over the litany of things he has to do the next day: “milk the cows, repair the fence, mow the hay, and climb the silo.” But as the night wears on, his list becomes more and more jumbled: “mow the cow, climb the fence, repair the hair, and milk the silo....repair the cow, climb the fence, milk the hay, and mow the silo,” and so on. There’s also fine use of repetition in this text that balances patterning with the hilarious scrambled wordplay. The story has been translated into Spanish and is presented here in both languages. Morgan Midgett’s folksy oil illustrations imagine what it might look like if poor Farmer Felandro were actually carrying out each of his seemingly impossible, mixed-up tasks. (Ages 4–8)

The misadventures of a sleepy farmer as he agonizes over a mixed-up list of the coming day's chores. Full story told in English and Spanish.