Buttercup is blissed out. On a beautiful summer day, the happy cow rhapsodizes about her delight in the rural world. She loves this day, the clouds, the fields, her tongue, the creek –and that’s just the beginning of her recitation of bucolic blessings.

Buttercup’s Lovely Day, author Carolyn Beck’s second picture book, is a read-aloud gem. Using 14 stanzas of varying length, Beck creates an endearing character, establishes a pastoral setting, and delivers an entertaining account of a cow’s idyllic day. The story is a clever, joyful, playful celebration of creative language, sound, rhyme, rhythm, and repetition. In Buttercup’s world, flies “fluzz,” the creek “guggles,” and clouds and skunks “whiff and waft and puff around.” At day’s end, “softly, slyly, sleep slips in.”

Supporting Beck’s lyrical text are 18 double-page paintings by Andrea Beck, author-illustrator of the popular Elliot Moose picture book series and sister of the author. Beck’s illustrations, including the endpapers and cover, reinforce the text’s spirit and sense of fun. Her large pictures, bright colours, varying perspectives, and contrasting portrayals of day, dusk, and darkness make the book a prime show-and-tell resource.

Buttercup’s Lovely Day is the Beck team’s second collaboration. The Waiting Dog, their first picture book, was marked by a gory theme, dark humour, and grisly images. While fans of that book may be disappointed with Buttercup – the antithesis of the canine who craved the taste of postal carriers – others will delight in finding this story every bit as pleasant as the previous one was gruesome.