The Cowboy's Christmas Isn't Western But Is Well-Mannered

I have always gravitated toward the cowboy lifestyle, so I was intrigued when I happened upon the picture book The Cowboy’s Christmas by Joan Walsh Anglund, who tends to stick more with poetry in most of her books. While the title character certainly looks like a little cowboy, I was rather disappointed to find that nothing he does in the book is particularly cowboyish. Nonetheless, this is a cute Christmas book encouraging children to be on their best behavior as Christmas approaches.

This is a very simple book about a cowboy who is “Especially Busy” getting ready for Christmas. Those words are two of several that are capitalized for emphasis. Like many of Anglund’s books, this one has only about one sentence on each page. It’s about half the size of a typical picture book but nearly twice the size as Anglund’s tiny gift books, so it feels fairly spacious despite its small size.

As I was reading this for the first time, it became apparent to me that it was part of a series. I have not read any of Anglund’s other cowboy books, and I think it would be helpful to read at least the first one, as that apparently establishes this character as a bit of a troublemaker. The cowboy’s actions are meant to seem extraordinary because readers already know him as a scallywag. However, nothing he does in this book suggests that, and if it weren’t for the way the text was worded, I would have no reason to suspect that he is anything other than perfectly well-mannered.

This book does not provide any information about the bear, either. Where did he come from? How did they meet? Is he visible to everyone or just the cowboy? It’s really not clear. I do find the color scheme of this book interesting, though. While the cowboy and most of the background objects are black, the bear, the mice and a few other page elements are red. It’s only the two colors, so it’s pretty drab, but the stark contrast is interesting.

Because the cowboy’s darker past is only hinted at here, there’s not much dramatic tension to be found. Instead, it’s just a straightforward account of someone getting ready for Christmas. Given his diminutive height and the typical baby face that Anglund gives him, he definitely seems to be a child, but he also lives all alone, at least without human supervision. He does share his house with a jumbo-sized bear and a family of mice. Still, he comes across as an interesting sort of kid-adult hybrid.

The Cowboy’s Christmas was published in 1972, and it looks older than that. The red and black color scheme more than anything else is what makes it seem like a product of an earlier part of the century; the capitalized words seem quaint too. It’s a good sort of nostalgia, which is something you could say about most of Anglund’s books. While it would have been nice if this book had more of a western flavor to it, the cowboy’s determination to extend goodwill to others makes for a most agreeable tale.