Hank the Cowdog Review

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Maverick books is the home of Hank the Cowdog, a series of books written by John Erickson about life on a ranch from the perspective of Hank, a dog.  Maverick books offers  the complete set of Hank books and CD’s, as well as Hank toys, games and accessories.

Our family received the Hank Tornado game, “Tales and Tunes from Hank the Cowdog” CD ($3) and Hank the Cowdog in “The Case of the One-Eyed Killer Stud” book ($4.24).

The Tornado game ($12.99) scored high in my book for several reasons.  It is compact, self contained, very cute,humorous and fun.  The game board, which is plastic, folds in half to create a box and all of the pieces will fit into that box.  When the game is unfolded the spinner locks into place on the center of the board locking the game open.  All of the pieces fit into the board while playing, so this is a great game for travel.

Carter (8), Matthew (10), Alyssa (8) and Kaitlin (11) began playing the game immediately and were hooked.  It is a variation of the game Sorry  where you have to move your pieces around the board and into a safety zone, while the other players try to stomp on you to send you back to the beginning.  Each player has a Hank, Drover and buzzard playing piece.  The buzzard piece sits next to your opponents start spot.  I found that immensely amusing, buzzards just waiting for their opponent to finally get out of the start and then stomping them right back!    The game is charming, clever and cute.

The Hank book that we received is enjoyably comical.  Not only were the children laughing out loud throughout, Mark and I often had to stop reading to giggle ourselves.  We read half the book during family fun night and finished the next morning.  The witty dialogue between Hank and Drover is clever and amusing.  They misuse words like using mahogany instead of monotony, use circular reasoning as only dogs can and unusual sayings such as “When your in the soup, you can’t go back and check the recipe”.

I really, really wanted to LOVE these Hank books.  They are written at a simple reading level, are engaging and HYSTERICAL.  I was hoping that our still struggling reader would become hooked and that these books would catapult him into the world of independent reading.  However, these books are not a good fit for our family standards, they are riddled with “Christian” curse words.  Words like gosh, gee, heck, darn etc. are not allowed in our home and these books are rife with them.  Mark and I simply omitted them as we read and the book lost none of it’s charm or humor.  It would be wonderful if the books could be edited, the words removed and made more acceptable to a wider Christian audience.

Another objection that some families may have to these books is the juvenile and sometimes disrespectful humor.  In our book the 3 year old boy called his mom a dummy and the general tone of the dialogue tends to be irreverent and disrespectful.  That said, these books are written from the perspective of a dog, with the words of a dog.  Given that I think that some of the irreverence could be overlooked or understood.  While we don’t allow our children to routinely use derogatory terms, we do not object to their use in literature. However, there is a difference between derogatory speech being used in literature and literature where the “hero” of the story uses this pattern of speech constantly.  The Hank books fall into the latter category.

We did not allow our children to listen to the “Tales and Tunes from Hank the Cowdog” CD that we received.  While our family was able to enjoy the book because Mark or I were able to omit what we found objectionable, that option is not possible with the CD.  I did listen to the CD and found it to have all the charm and humor of the Hank books.  I enjoyed the dialogue and the special voices for each character and the songs are catchy and cute, but all is riddled with the same language and irreverence as the books.

Pros:

• Clever, engaging, unique dialogue and story.
• Easy reading level for beginning readers, but still enjoyable for more advanced readers and even mom and dad.
• Fun game that is good for travel.

Cons:

• Books and CD’s riddled with “Christian” swearing.
• Disrespectful, irreverent behavior  and attitude displayed by all characters.

You may be interested in more of Raising Olives homeschool reviews or read about how we homeschool to understand the perspective from which these reviews are coming.

You may also enjoy:

1. Sarah Books: Review
2. Rocket Phonics Review
3. Beehive Reader 1: Review