Chronicle Books 2004

This was my first real picture book that led to two more in this series about Stanley. This one, like the others, is pretty simple. Man goes for a drive in the country in his old truck, (’56 Chevy), notices it’s a dry landscape, gets an idea, milks the only spotted cow in sight, pours milk into the sky and voila! Clouds turn dark and rain, everything turns green and Stanley heads home. As a third grader once said to me, “ Of course, milk makes clouds, why isn’t it chocolate milk?”

I owned a Stanley truck when I was in college so it was fun to revisit and study it’s beautiful lines. The cows were fun to draw in their various silhouettes. And the clouds were just big jellybeans. Like I have done on several books, I designed the case cover different from the jacket—a reward for the kid that rips it off.

I later created an animation from this book.

Frazier’s imaginative conceptual and graphic solution will appeal to younger and more sophisticated readers.

—Kirkus Reviews