Nadine is a cow with a perfect life. She lives on a farm with kindly old Pete, and although the other cows laugh at her for wandering off on her own to search for stones, she doesn’t mind their gossip – not even when they sniff and call her Queen Nadine. One day Nadine finds a marvellous white stone that is different from any other, and the other cows advise her to take good care of it and keep it warm. But her care of the stone is interrupted when Pete sells his cows to another farmer and they are loaded into trucks and taken away. Nadine is heartbroken and pines away for Pete and her wonderful stone. When Pete finally comes to bring her back, she discovers her stone broken and empty. In its stead, however, there is a friendly little chick who hops on her head and becomes her best friend. Nadine and her chicken chum live happily ever after with Pete.

This gentle story deals with being different in a humorous way. Nadine’s intense love for the stone wins the reader’s sympathy, and the gossipy cows who criticize her are comical, familiar human types. Young readers will be delighted at Nadine’s abiding ignorance of the stone’s true identity, and her failure to recognize even in the end that the stone was really an egg from which her chicken friend hatched. Yet Nadine’s naiveté is coupled with a deep sense of love and loyalty, and these are the values that make her special.

Kovalski seems to agree with cartoonist Gary Larson’s contention that cows are intrinsically humorous. Her charming illustrations capture both the sense of farm life and the humour of the cows, especially in the scenes where the others stand apart, gossiping about Nadine. However, Kovalski’s text is long and wordy in places, and lacks the zing that would make this book a classic. Nevertheless, Queen Nadine is certain to please readers of all ages.